AMERICA’S FOOD SUPPLY

Waipa Post, Volume XXIV, Issue 1682, 5 November 1925, Page 2

AMERICA’S FOOD SUPPLY

A SHORTAGE EXPECTED. “There is no doubt about it: the United States in five or six years will be a food-importing country,” said Mr W. 'H. Porterfield, an American journalist, in an interview recently. “iWe are not exporting much in the way of foodstuffs, and our exports are more than equalled by our imports of wheat from Canada. The United .States is not a wheat-growing country; it is well to admit it. We cannot grow 45 bushels to the acre, as is done in Victoria; the land is not so good as that. At present we are growing about 800,000,000 bushels a year, and we are importing all that Canada can let us have, about 350,000,000 bushels. Our population is growing, and the people are eating less meat and more cereals, as the statistics show “ We are becoming more and mo fie an industrial nation. We would like to produce all our own food, but it is a difficult matter to get people to settle on the land fast enough to keep up the food supply. We shall have to import breadstuffs before long, and altogether the wheat supply is going to be a very serious problem.” Mr Porterfield did not think there would be a great demand for imported meat and dairy produce in the next few years—at least, not a demand comparable to that for breadstuffs. He explained that intensive cultivation was carried on actively in the United States, and dairying came under that head, the cattle being housed for most of the year and fed on ensilage when pasture was not available. As 'he had said, the consumption of meat per head of the population was declining. He mentioned that the Government and private enterprise were doing much to open up unused lands for settlement by the aid of irrigation, and Government lands, of whch there were large tracts, were being offered to settlers on very liberal terms. However, the difficulty of keeping up the food supply of more than 100,000,000 people remained a grave one.