THE WORLD’S CEREALS.

New Zealand Journal of Agriculture, Volume XII, Issue 4, 20 April 1916, Page 333

THE WORLD’S CEREALS.

In a note, dated the 10th January, 1916, on the World’s Yield of Food Crops, Sir J. Wilson, British ■ delegate to the International Institute of Agriculture, dealing with cereals— rye, barley, oats, and maizestates as follows : “ These grains are not all of the same nutritive value, but they are all used to some extent for human food, and can be substituted one for the other in case of need. Putting these five grains together, countries which on the average produce more than four-fifths of the reported crops have officially estimated their yield for the harvest year now ending as equivalent to 119 per cent, of their last year’s yield, and to 114 per cent, of their average yield for the previous five years. Even after making allowance for decreased production and waste of grain in the countries at present devastated by war, there seems reason to believe that the supply of the cereal food-grains in the world as a whole is at present considerably larger than it was at the same period of the year on the average , of the last five years, while the effective demand for these grains for the world as a whole is likely : to be below the average of the years before the war. ; ,