FARM MACHINERY

Wairarapa Times-Age, 8 January 1944, Page 3

FARM MACHINERY

BIG EXPORTS FROM UNITED STATES TO BRITAIN AND OTHER COUNTRIES. VITAL AID TO PRODUCTION. (Bv Telegraph—Press Association—Copyright) (Received This Day, 10.15 a.m.) LONDON, January 7. The dependence of the United Nations on the United States where farm machinery is concerned has been virtually complete, according to the latest United States Lend-Lease report. The United States has been shipping to Britain during the past 2J years two per cent of the United States production of such machinery, with the help of which eight million acres have been brought into farm production. Whereas before the war the British imported two pounds of food for every pound they raised, now they raise two for every one imported. Bombers take off from long, level fields which four years ago were among the best farms.-New acreage had to be created from mar?hes and hammered out of the rough soil of hills in the western counties. These marginal lands could not be drained, cleared and converted to food production without the heavy type of farm power available only in America. United States troops in Australia and New Zealand are being fed almost entirely locally, under lend-lease, which would have been virtually impossible without United S'tatcs farm machinery. The United States sent over a million dollars worth of machinery to India to assist that country to meet critical food shortages. Smaller amounts have been sent to North Africa and the Middle East. North Africa is now producing food, not only for its own population, but for the armed forces and Southern Italy. Hundreds of thousands of tons of shipping space have been saved by increases in food production achieved by the countries of the Middle East.