The Glut Will Not Last

Flushed with embarrassment, the War Food Administration found itself confronted with an unmanageable glut of potatoes and eggs. It alone was responsible for bumper crops of these two staples; farmers had patriotically upped production at its urging. So WFA proclaimed last week National Potato Week, this week National Egg Week, and fervently hoped that the nation would rush to buy.

Plenty for All--Now. There was other news last week to make citizens suppose that the food shortage was over, and the long-predicted "famine" a false alarm. Butter stocks were over 100 million lb., as against a normal spring supply of 40 million lb. Lard stocks were the biggest ever. Total meat production in March was 27% greater than a year ago. There were hints that point values for lamb and mutton, butter, pork products, and some beef cuts would be reduced on May 1 Manhattan's bustling fish market was swamped one day by the arrival of 1.5 million Ib. of fish (normal daily average: 650,000 Ib.). Warehouses and cold-storage plants from coast to coast were bursting with food. People were warned that it would spoil unless they ate more.

Yet hardheaded U.S. agricultural leaders know that the current glut is evidence, not of food surplus, but of a critical deficiency of storage space. A 32% increase in food production last year over average production in 1935-39 was not matched by a corresponding increase in storage facilities. Transportation, too, is lacking. The armed services now have their food warehouses filled, and reserves earmarked for invasion fronts are choking British and U.S. ports and inland terminals.

Less Food--Later. Last week 100 carloads of Canadian feed wheat were shipped into Kansas, No. 1 wheat-producing state, to replenish dwindling supplies of livestock feed. U.S. grain stocks are running dangerously low.

U.S. livestock population is now so big that practically all of last year's bumper corn harvest, plus a carry-over of 394 million bushels, will have been drawn from the cribs by October, when the 1944 corn crop is harvested. It is estimated that by July, wheat stocks in the cavernous elevators will be down to a little more than a month's supply. In one year the record number of U.S. livestock will have eaten all the grain that the land produced, plus the huge surpluses from other years.

The best the U.S. can hope for this year are grain harvests as large as last year's bumper crops. A poor harvest would mean swift national disaster, for grains are the broad base upon which rests the entire agricultural economy. Better than 60% of all cultivated U.S. farm land is planted to grains, most of which are fed to livestock and thus converted into meat and dairy products. Without grain there can be no hogs, no prime beef, ho poultry or eggs, no bread, and much less milk.

But even if the nation is lucky and reaps a bountiful harvest--for the eighth successive season--the grain traders argue that there will not be enough grain for all needs. Livestock numbers, they say, must be reduced 20 to 30% if the U.S. is to have bread for its citizens, corn for its war industries* and wheat for industrial alcohol. When livestock numbers are reduced, the U.S. will tighten its belt.

* This week, to assure war-plant supplies, WFA took a 60-day Government option on all corn in Midwestern counties.

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