Meat Is on the Way

The U.S. meat famine will end soon. Butcher-shop counters should soon groan with beefsteaks and pork chops.

This forecast of abundance, made last week by virtually all meat experts, is based on one plain fact: for at least six months the U.S. has had not too little but too much meat--on the hoof. Farmers now have an estimated 78,000,000 head of cattle and 75,000,000 hogs, the greatest number in history. Since the nation does not have enough feed for these enormous herds, some of them must be slaughtered. The slaughtering means a temporary glut of meat.

Hogs to Market. Last week the rush of hogs to market had already begun. In four days, eleven U. S. marketing centers handled 363,000 head--35,000 more than in the same week last year and 64,000 more than two years ago. At West Fargo, N.D., the Armour packing plant had to suspend buying for three days to catch up with the run. At Chicago, the War Meat Board urged farmers to hold off shipments to avoid a panic market.

Cattle to Market. Beef slaughterings have been running as much as 40% below last year--with the bulk going to the armed forces. But last week, on the Western ranges, kept green and thick by heavy spring rains, the grass was finally starting to dry up. Soon ranchers will have to start feeding their livestock grain, which is almost impossible to get, or send their herds off to market. This set the stage for a record stampede.

Supply v. Demand. Heretofore the record pig crop has been kept off the market by Administration food-and-price policy. The Agriculture Department guarantees hog raisers a $13.75 per 100 lb. "floor" price--put in effect last year to stimulate hog production. The Office of Price Administration has a $1.07 ceiling on corn. Thus the hog corn ratio is artificially maintained at 13-to-1--so high that farmers would be foolish to do anything with their corn except feed it to hogs.

This policy, once laudable, has long since become a Frankenstein's monster. It has:

>Produced too many pigs and too little pork. (Farmers hold back their stock to feed it to the highest possible weight or to produce more pigs next season.)

>Paralyzed the corn market. (Poultry raisers, dairy farmers and commercial users, who need corn so badly that milk may have to be rationed in some states, are unable to buy.)

>Created an actual corn shortage. (If hogs continue to consume corn at the present rate, the U.S. will have only 25,000,000 bu. at next season's end--one-twelfth the normal carry-over.)

When the laws of supply & demand are permitted to operate, fluctuations in the corn-hog ratio keep the corn supply and number of hogs in automatic balance. Under the Agriculture Department-OPA rules, they have moved so far apart that only a major hog liquidation can restore any semblance of order. Thanks to the growing feed shortage, this liquidation is now beginning.

The coming rush to market should prove a good thing for the U.S. In the midst of wartime food scarcities the U.S. should be using its feed grains first for poultry and dairy herds, then for beef cattle which eat grass as well as grain. A large hog population, eating vast quantities of corn, is a luxury the U.S. cannot afford in wartime.

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