The Synthetic Food Crisis

...These changes impose a severe strain upon them, especially in communities where the normal facilities of housing, food distribution, medical rare, and sanitation are so largely larking...

...That is real mass production, but it must be achieved on a bits-and-pieces basis by many small plants...

...Some concerns find that it pays to provide the food free...

...The Nutrition Division of the Office of Defense, Health, and Welfare also now forms part of the Food Distribution Administration's civilian organization...

...It covers 1.500,000 square miles, more than half the nation's land area, and engages the energies of one out of four in our population...

...Labor in Meld and factory required selection and allocation quite as careful as we rave to men entering the armed forces...

...It has been shown by a number of industrial firms that the provision of lunches, ni of all three meals, at cost, lowers sickness rates and absenteeism among workers, increases output, and decreases rejects among finished products...

...Planning production by a mere 200,000 manufacturing establishments or distribution through the nation's 2,500,000 business concerns of all kinds, including corner groceries and filling stations, is a simple problem by comparison...

...The American farm plant is our biggest industry...

...Observation also discloses that properly fed workers are happier on the job anil less likely to strike than those not properly fed...

...Animal foods are of great value *** *e should continue to carry as much livestock as Possible, especially dairy cows, while increasing our fraction of cereals, soybesns...

...The members of our armed forces are carefully selected after thorough examination...

...That would lead us toward a sound wartime diet...

...Both the armed forces and war industry drained farming of its required labor, equipment, and supplies...

...We should decrease our consumption of vegetables and fruits other than tho.-e mentioned above, of eggs, meat, poultry, ami fish, and of fats, oils, sugars, and sirups...

...At the same time the demands for food increased almost incredibly...

...we had only so many potential pirfr— While munitions of war were important, it w ju>t as important to keep all war workers well gagrwhed and fully equip whatever armed forced we tscieed i» raise and maintain...

...Additional credit-expansion and price-support devices both have been created to aid larmers...

...Thousands of these workers bulb in factories anil on farms were formerly unemployed and undernourished for long periods...

...Conversion and vastly increased production are far more difficult to achieve on the farm than in an industrial set-up...

...Naturally it will seem for a while that it simply cannot be done with the labor and materials at hand...

...It was tarried out in 1942 and the production goals were, as a whole, surpassed...

...I Ho complete inventory of our available men, ma terisls...

...We had to plan in a dynamic situation wherein requirements changed drastically in short periods of time...

...The job of coordinating production and converting the farm plant to specific war goals, is stupendous...

...HE most efficient use of our farm plant, necessitates "T WOMntration, not upon specific foods, but upon the *•*¦ nutritive elements in foods: protein, fats, carbo-*"Jarate, vitamins, and minerals...

...It involves 6,000,000 operators and almost us many different soils and climatic conditions...

...We shall have to plan, be frugal, and accept some unusual substitutes...

...Careful integration of Government buying, with further rationing and price control, the stamping out of black markets, and additional spread of the newer knowledge of nutrition, are measures already undertaken by the Government that will greatly aid consumers...

...Adverse weather conditions and resultant floods rendered the farmer's 1943 task more difficult...

...each recent forecast has been better than the last...

...The health and morale of these basic workers must be protected...

...They have to make terrific adjustments both in hours of labor, period of the day winked, hiiiI concentration on work...

...This planning job is an enormous one...

...No problems can be wholly solved during total war...

...Manpower shortage will tend to make farmers turn more to machinery The War Production Board originally alloted steel to make only 40 per cent as much new farm machinery in 1943 as in 1940, a figure raised to 80 per rent in June, with no restriction on steel for repair parts...

...the best food and medical attention are provided for them, ami only the young and fit are taken...

...We $kall in any rate remain the beet led people in the world...

...Industry, agri-aaltare, and the armed forces very largely acted as antonomons sectors of oar society snd competed iwtbleesly with one another for men and materials...

...1943 the farm plant has been geared to pro-duce 3G0 bushels of soybeans, 7,000 pounds of peanuts, 2 tons of dried beans, 743 bushels of potatoes, more than 10 tons of beef and veal, 13 tons of pork, 108,000 quarts of milk, 9,000 dozen eggs, L"2 tons of chicken —and a great deal more—every 60 tecondi in every day...

...The farm labor situation has already improved...

...In doing this we did throw agriralturr into temporary maladjustment, just as we have certain sectors of business and industry...

...Aftei Pearl Harbor this program was promptly revised jo that more fat and eil and other war crops would be produced...

...F«od waa then rationed on a price basis...

...This means that we shall drift more to vegetable and *"*y from animal sources for our protein and our •*Tfy foods, i. e. more vegetable fats and carbo-¦ynratea for energy, less animal fats.' It does not mean JP* *e shall adopt a so-called "Chinese" or vegetarian It does not mean that we shall drastically reduce livestock numbers...

...Rational steps are being taken to right the situation...

...and dried ind peas...

...Food hysterics may be dispensed with for the duration...

...Actually, however, these demands absorbed no more of our farm production than the increase in 1942 over output in 1941...

...r\URIN...

...Some of these demands were mad' by others of the Allied Nations for lend-lease shipment and by ear armed forces...

...We had to plan our whole economy, something quite new for us, and each atep taken had repercussions throughout...

...It simply marked a stage in undertaking planned production...

...it is not necessary that •dhury civilians have more than sufficient food to maintain well-being and morale...

...Agriculture urgent I * needed equipment and materials as well as jid war plants...

...The crisis in food is passed...

...Some, but not enough year-round workers were trans ferred from small unproductive farms to more productive farms, Many seasonal workers were transported by the Government even considerable distances to work where needed...

...That measure of sacrifice civilians should not protest...

...Undoubtedly the farm reservoir of labor has been too much depleted, but this is rapidly being remedied...

...That it was carried out was in large part due to intelligent planning, good weather, the fact that workers had not been drained heavily from the farms in the spring of 1942, and that the farms had a stock pile of equipment snd materials to use...

...Throughout the war we shall not be able to get just what food we want whenever we want it...

...These people, with their larger incomes, bought food as never before...

...It is wrong to think either that farm planning is being neglected or that civilians will get only what is left All food production is being carefully planned and civilian allocations are arrived at scientifically...

...Moth industry and the armed foxes depend on agriculture...

...Broadly speaking, if we adjusted our diet to use food crops that use our farm resources most efficiently, we should increase our consumption of potatoes, sweet-potatoes, dried beans, dried peas, shelled nuts, leafy green and yellow vegetables, grain products, and milk products butler excluded...

...We must produce jheea food commodities that can be turned out with the drain upon our agricultural resources and from if*ty a complete diet, speaking nutritionally, can be smsiubled for civilians...

...They will get their ububI parity payments on certain crops and for following sound soil conservation practices...

...This drainage was greater than it would have been had more scientific plans been made originally, but much of it was unavoidable, the total war emergency changing character rapidly as it did and democratic procedure of trial and error being what it is...

...The Army has fur-loughed some boys to help on farms, occupational deferment is being granted farm workers much more frequently, volunteer land armies proved a success, and mora persons from villages, towns, and even cities have been trained to work at skilled farm tasks...

...No Famine in Sight I OUISBROM-FIELD'S dire predictions in the Kemdere' liiaent thst February woald witness starvation in these United States, and similar prophesies by the livestock interests, did not come true...

...But prospects are excellent for a 5 per cent increase in food production over 1942...

...There ts not even eneegh food to assure every civilian a completely adequately did!, hat there never has been in this or any other country In tho prosperous twenties many of am west inadequately fed, an inadequacy that became gravely acute In the early thirties...

...yl'R UndtBcy to howl dismally about tho "food 1 I . .isis" Mid "banglinr" on tho farm front is \*r simply another indication that too few of us ftef, yet realise what either democracy or total war leslly n»«»nWhen war loomed we had only so .much land, equip-paot, and materials...

...The best we can do is to arrive at a fail iy scientific allocation of men and materials based upon the relative importance of the activities concerned, 'has it is a primary necessity that fighters and heavy ••rbers have ample food...

...Critics of our food policies overlook the fact that agriculture must face privations and hardships with the rest of us...

...Our land sown to crups is larger than Germany, Italy, and Japan combined...

...nt'l during 1942, farm production became more and more difficult as supplies dwindled, machines wore out snd were hard to replace, and men left the farms in droves both for industry and the aimed forces...

...Modern warfare depends upon agriculture and Industry...

...Every time the supply of consumer goods was restricted or rationed the buying pressure grew stronger than ever on items not restricted...

...In (his article, T. Swann Harding, a specialist on agricultural problems, analyzes the present food situation and future prospects...

...The main increase in demand came from our own citizens, many of whom had been unemployed, or underemployed, and undernourished for years...

...Of course the production job will be hard...

...In late 1941, however, agriculture adopted a planned ¦reduction program for 1042...

...Rut we realize that the farm is fundamental...

...In four months I i.oo (ion placements of farm workers were made The fertilizer, insecticide, and seed situations are not bad at all...

...We entered 1943 with a fair prospect that nobody would starve, but serious measures had to be taken to See that all civilians had sufficient food for good nourishment However reluctantly, we must make up our minds to accept the sacrifices involved in the drastically lowered scale of living required by war...

...pesnuts...

...Those who had inauasrient money could not buy...

...Rut farm and industrial workers, whose tasks are quite as important and exacting, are employed after only cursory exanii nation or none at all...

...There was a real food shortage then, yet we heard almost nothing about these crises in nutrition...

...Fee long the tendency was to take the word of mili-tefy experts for the sise ou> armed forces should attain, without giving due weight lo the problem of clothing, feeding, and arming these men, and of providing the workers who were tu produce for theav Undoubtedly food and agriculture were long too lightly considered by those who planned to All the needs of the military and naval establishments...

...The Civilian Requirements Branch of the Food Distribution Administration sees to it that civilians are not neglerted...

...The American standard of living remains the highest in the world, and the shortagea and rationing we have had have occasioned little real sacrifice or great discomfort...

...Therefore some rationing led to more of the same, and we face the prospect now •f general rationing, a step urged by some of us early la mi...

...But provision is definitely being made for the feeding of our civilian population which, has allocated to it three-quarters of our 1943 food production...

...Kvidently there is nothing to worry much about if we fare our problems intelligently and planning '» ""' upset by the stupidity of a reactionary Congress...

...and equipment was made...