Food shortage

“ If, because of the great demand, high food prices prevailed, their prevalence would automatically solve the problem of food shortage. They would stimulate production and curtail consumption; our people would buy less and there would be more of a surplus to send to the Allies.
Hoover's answer was that unrestricted sky [Pg 226] -rocketing of prices would certainly curtail consumption, but it would be the consumption by the poor, the hosts of wage-earners and the small-salaried. ”

“ To keep wheat constantly going over to our Allies and sufficient stores in the United States at the same time, is one of the big problems of the Food Administration. Production has had to be increased and consumption decreased. The price has had to be kept down, for in a time of shortage prices always tend to go up. It is true that high prices furnish one method of decreasing the consumption of food, but it is a method that means enforced conservation by the poor and no conservation by the rich. ”

“ We also immediately undertook an intensive food production campaign and granted crop loans to rice producers. Even if the government should fail to collect part of these loans, the resulting losses, if any, would not be large, and the amount not recovered would be but a small price to pay for having prevented starvation and distress among our people. Today, despite the many typhoons and floods that swept our country during the past year, we can rest assured that our population will not suffer from a food shortage. ”

“ The population of the United States is out of balance—too many consumers in cities—too few producers in the country—with a steadily increasing food shortage and higher cost of living in consequence. The annual production of food from the 5,000,000 acres owned by the national government, and intensively cultivated [Pg 382] by the Homecroft Reserve, would tend largely to reduce the cost of living. It would aggregate more than half the value of the entire annual production from all the farms of the United States to-day. ”

“ Even in normal times their lot is not to be envied: food shortage is almost inevitable. Suddenly they find that for a sovereign they can purchase only fifteen shillings' worth of food. Hunger steps in at once: the pinch of famine is felt acutely, and, thanks to the appalling price to which coal has been forced, it is aggravated by intense suffering from the cold, which ill-nurtured bodies are in no condition to resist. ”

“ Poor Economy
In these days of increased destruction and decreased production of human foods, it is of great importance to know how to secure a maximum amount of nutrition from a minimum expenditure of money. The world is facing a food shortage that in some places has assumed the proportion of the gaunt specter of famine. In view of this fact, it is well to remember that flesh is the most costly source of food. Sixty-two per cent of the best beefsteak is water. Flesh foods contain but twenty-five per cent nourishment, and seventy-five per cent waste matter. ”

“ There is much talk of food shortage. The amount of food consumed and wasted annually in the United States is enough to feed 200,000,000 people. Even with our present knowledge we can easily produce twice as much per acre as we are averaging, and we are tilling only about one-fourth of the land that could be made productive. If we use our brains there is little danger of starving. What is needed now is not more food, but intelligent distribution and consumption of what we produce. ”

“ I am sure that the millions of our people, agricultural as well as urban, who have contributed to these results, should feel a very definite satisfaction that, in a year of universal food shortage in the Northern Hemisphere, all of these people joined together against Germany have come through into sight of the coming harvest not only with health and strength fully maintained, but with only temporary periods of hardship. ”

“ At the same time, food shortage and even famine had already made themselves felt in the cities. The organization for the maintenance of supplies had broken down completely for the reasons just mentioned. ”

“ Conditions that disturb normal food production and distribution, such for example as were brought about by the world war, produce serious food shortages in the world, and emphasize how close is the margin that determines whether the peoples of the world have adequate quantities of food or whether they are faced by shortages, and, in many cases, by starvation. ”

“ The workers cannot work because they have insufficient nourishment, and the peasants will not produce foodstuffs for them because they have no manufactured products—agricultural machinery, fertilizers, shoes, etc.—to give them in exchange. And now this food shortage, created principally by the industrial deadlock between city and country. has been made incomparably worse by the terrible drought which has a up the crops in the Volga district and with which a shocked world is familiar. ”

“ Our consumption has greatly increased since the restraints of war. Decrease had not penetrated our agricultural community up to 1919 harvest, nor will such decrease arise from these causes, but as I will set out later, forces are entering that will decrease our agricultural production. Our production in nearly all important food commodities except sugar is in surplus of our own need. It only becomes a shortage affecting prices under the drain of exports. Therefore, it is the world shortage that is affecting our price levels, and not, so far, a deficiency for our needs. ”

“ More abundant and cheaper food, in turn, promotes marriage, and increases the population, until again there is a shortage of food; and this oscillation, though irregular, will always be found, and there will always be a tendency for the population to oscillate around the food limit.
Even among savages, where the degradation of women, infanticide, vice, famine, war, and disease are active instruments of decimation, it will be found that the average population, generally speaking, presses hard against the limits of the average food. ”

“ As to Supply of Food and Other Necessities.-Do we suffer from shortages of food, clothing and housing facilities?
There is no shortage, and no rationing of food or of clothing in the Philippines today. I do not expect that shortages will occur in the foreseeable future. As a matter of fact, provided we accelerate further our food production program, we may expect a surplus of some food articles for export.
We have greatly increased our rice production during the last two agricultural years. We assumed office in the face of an acute rice shortage, particularly in the Manila area. ”

“ In addition, some countries of Latin America are experiencing food shortages and are obliged to import grain.
The General Assembly has learned with concern that expected supplies of bread grains, rice, fats and oils, dairy products, meat and sugar appear to be substantially inadequate to meet minimum requirements for human consumption in 1947. Many countries, especially those which have suffered from enemy occupation and those which do not produce sufficient foodstuffs to meet their own requirements, need agricultural supplies such as machinery, implements, fertilizers, pesticides and seeds. ”

“ The amount of grain they consumed increased steadily. Now, the problem of food shortages has been resolved. Key impoverished groups have much better nutrition, and the right to be free from hunger is guaranteed. ”

“ I don’t in the least imagine that if real shortage came private people would be allowed to store food; but a house run for a war purpose might be different. Anyhow, there’s no shortage yet, so there’s no harm in beginning as soon as we can. ”

“ The General Assembly recognizes, however, that the food situation is still unsatisfactory. A number of countries have not yet overcome the devastating results of the enemy occupation to which they were subjected, and are obliged on this account to continue emergency imports of grains, fats and other foodstuffs. A severe shortage of these foodstuffs exists in many European countries, even in some of those which before the war were themselves exporters. ”

“ The artificial causes of famine have mostly ceased to be operative on any large scale. Chief among them is war, which may cause a shortage of food-supplies, either by its direct ravages or by depleting the supply of agricultural labour. But only local famines are likely to arise from this cause. Legislative interference with agricultural operations or with the distribution of food-supplies, currency restrictions and failure of transport, which have all caused famines in the past, are unlikely thus to operate again ”

“ The rations are inadequate and irregular, so that it is impossible to preserve health and vigour without the help of food purchased illicitly in the markets at speculative prices. I have given reasons for thinking that the breakdown of transport, though a contributory cause, is not the main reason for the shortage. ”

“ The nation faces its seventh year of food shortages because of weather-related problems, including major drought in 2000, and chronic shortages of fertilizer and fuel. Massive international food aid deliveries have allowed the regime to escape the major consequence of spreading economic failure, such as mass starvation, but the population remains vulnerable to prolonged malnutrition and deteriorating living conditions. Large-scale military spending eats up resources needed for expanding investment and consumption goods. ”

“ The serious fact remains, however, that our older lands are decreasing in productive power and, in spite of what may be accomplished by such methods of conservation, we are now facing a rapidly approaching shortage of food supplies for the rapidly increasing population of these United States ”

“ We and other donor countries have begun to assist poor countries develop long-term strategies to improve their food production. The World Bank will invest up to $4 billion in the next few years in improving the grain storage and food-handling capacity of countries prone to food shortages. ”

“ During most food shortages, poor households not only cannot produce food but also lose their usual sources of income and cannot buy the food that is available. Hence food security also requires that machinery is available promptly to put purchasing power in the hands of disaster-struck households, through emergency public works programme, and through measures to protect small farmers from crop failures. ”

“ Food supplies have increased substantially, but constraints on access to food and continuing inadequacy of household and national incomes to purchase food, instability of supply and demand, as well as natural and man-made disasters, prevent basic food needs from being fulfilled. ”

“ It is an odd thing that last spring, by a queer oversight, we never thought, any of us, of this process of increasing the supply. If every patriotic man would simply take a large basket and go to the market every day and buy all that he could carry away there need be no further fear of a food famine. ”

“ They will find a readier sale, and at better prices, for their wheat, flour, rice, Indian corn, beef, pork, lard, butter, cheese, and other articles which they produce. The home market alone is inadequate to enable them to dispose of the immense surplus of food and other articles which they are capable of producing, even at the most reduced prices, for the manifest reason that they can not be consumed in the country. The United States can from their immense surplus supply not only the home demand, but the deficiencies of food required by the whole world. ”

“ It was also feared that, in case of a failure of the crops, a serious famine might happen to the people, owing to the want of the accustomed stores which are usually laid up by the government, in the paternal spirit of providing the poor with food at a moderate price, in the event of such a contingency. ”

“ It became economically unsound for so great a percentage of food producers to spend their time in producing meats and staples, only part of which could be consumed by themselves and their near neighbors, the rest going to waste. The great waste of the surplus products set the minds of men of genius to devising ways to preserve the foods of abundant harvests for the seasons of scarcity. The result is before us in the form of modern cold-storage plants, refrigerator cars, volume-curing and pickling of meat products, and volume-canning of fish, meats, fruits, and vegetables ”

“ The combined effects of serious fertilizer shortages, successive natural disasters, and structural constraints - such as marginal arable land and a short growing season - have reduced staple grain output to more than 1 million tons less than what the country needs to meet even minimum international requirements. The steady flow of international food aid has been critical in meeting the population's basic food needs. ”

“ It is not the first time in history that starvation and famine affect people all over the world. What is new is the scale of the problem, affecting well over one billion human beings. In June, 1974, in the Assessment of the World Food Situation, commissioned by the United Nations Economic and Social Council, the situation was described in terms still unchanged: "The causes of inadequate nutrition are many and closely interrelated, including ecological, sanitary, and cultural constraints, but the principal cause is poverty. ”

“ The humanitarians, sentimentalists, crotchet-mongers, and fanatics have therefore, at least, one point in their favour—the cost of their food is far less than that of the shrewd flesh-eater. I mention this point first as being the most plain and indisputable, not necessarily the most important; yet that it is also of great importance will scarcely be denied, in a country whose food supply is yearly becoming a matter of greater difficulty, and where thousands of people are in a state of abject poverty and want. ”