Page Four 



V 



THE I. A. A. RECORD 



three years later it had 1000. In 1929 

 more than half your hard winter wheat 

 was harvested and threshed with com- 

 bines. 



Nor is this all. Changes in styles 

 of women's clothes has reduced the mar- 

 ket for cotton and wool which Ameri- 

 can farmers produce, and increased the 

 market for silk and haircuts which they 

 do not produce. The development of 

 rayon has decreased the farm mar- 

 ket. 



Even changes in diet, due partly to 

 the fact that the whole nation travels on 

 wheels, have caused shifts in the mar- 

 kets for farm products. The develop- 

 ment of substitutes for lard and butter 

 has ilarrowed the market for the prod- 

 ucts of the dairymen and the hog 

 farmers. 



Instances might be multiplied in- 

 definitely. Larger acreage, scientific 

 methods and mechanized farming have 

 vastly increased the production of the 

 .farmer, decrease in consumption and 

 the development of substitutes have 

 narrowed the markets. 



Instinctively, we have turned to the 

 foreign market as an outlet for this 

 surplus. 



But foreign agriculture has also ex- 

 panded. The total area under culti- 

 vated crops in Canada, Argentine, and 

 Australia, has increased 200 per cent 

 since 1900. These three countries had 

 over 40 million more acres sown to 

 wheat in 1929 than in 1900, a gain of 

 over 300 per cent. Their combined 

 wheat acreage is now greater than that 

 of the United States, while in 1900 it 

 was only bne-third as much. The area 

 under corn in Argentine is four times 

 what it was in 1900. That country is 

 ^ow the world's largest exporter of 

 dorn. The flaxseed acreage in Argen- 

 tine increased from 1,500,000 acres in 

 1900 to 7,000,000 acres in 1929, and 

 the United States is the principal mar- 

 ket sought for this Argentine prod- 

 uct. 



World Production 



^ Dairy products exports from the 

 Southern Hemisphere have increased by 

 leaps and bounds. The exports of but- 

 ter from New, Zealand, Australia and 

 Argentine ' were, in 1900, 50 million 

 pounds. They are now seven times as 

 great. New Zealand exported 12 mil- 

 lion pounds of cheese in 1900, — 175 

 million pounds in 1928. The exports of 

 casein from Australia have jumped from 

 few thousand pounds in 1900 to 

 40,000,000 pounds in 1928. In Europe, 

 the most rapid agriculture recovery has 

 been In livestock and dairy products. 

 Production of milk, cheese, butter and 

 ^rk now exceed the prewar level, 

 pven more spectacular has been the ex- 

 pansion in the beef industry in the 

 Southern Hemisphere. Australia, Uru- 



guay and Argentine combined now ex- 

 port more than 2000 million pounds of 

 beef as against 300 million pounds in 

 1900. Argentine alone has increased 

 its exports from 50 million pounds in 

 1900 to 1800 million pounds in 1929. 

 American beef has relaxed its hold on 

 the European market. Our beef ex- 

 ports have declined to 132 million 

 pounds in 1927, or about 7% of Argen- 

 tine's exports for 1929. 



The expansion in wool production has 

 also been great. In Australia, the 

 world's largest wool producer, the clip 



HOW TO WIN A LADY FAIR 



Courtesy Chicago Dally News 



now amounts to 900 million pounds, or 



double its production of three decades 



ago. _ _ 



Exports Increase 



Development of refrigeration meth- 

 ods and facilities has enabled Australia, 

 the South African States, New Zea- 

 land, Brazil and Chile, to become im- 

 portant factors in the world's fruit 

 trade. There has been a large increase 

 in exports from those countries of 

 oranges, grapefruit, raisins, currants, 

 plums and apples. 



Even Manchuria, in 1900, devoted to 

 hunting, fishing and herding, now has 

 30,000,000 acres in cultivation, and ex- 

 ports nearly 5 million tons of soya beans 

 and bean products. 



Before the war, Asiatiac Russia had 

 1,500,000 acres in cotton. During 

 1929, she had 2,500,000 acres. 



Tropical and sub-tropical agricul- 

 ture have had a remarkable expansion 

 in recent years. Among the products 

 which compete with the United States 

 are sugar and vegetable oils. The pro- 

 duction of sugar in Cuba alone in- 

 creased from a prewar average of less 

 than 2,500,000 tons to over 5,000,000 

 tons in recent years. Java has increased 

 her sugar production from a prewar 

 average of 1,500,000 tons to a present 

 average of 2,500,000 tons. 



One of the most significant develop- 

 ments in world agriculture since 1900 

 has been the expansion in tropical vege- 

 table oil production. These oils com- 

 pete in use with such temperate zone 

 vegetable oils as cottonseed, linseed, and 

 soya bean, as well as with animal fats 

 such as butter and lard. The main items 

 in the tropical vegetable oil crop are 

 palm oil, copra and cocoanut oil. The 

 exports of copra from the Philippine 

 Islands grew from around 100,000 tons 

 in 1900 to about 450,000 tons in 1927. 

 Cocoanut oil exports grew from nothing 

 in 1900 to over 300 million pounds in 

 1927. Exports of palm and palm kernel 

 oil from French West Africa are 50 

 per cent larger than before the war. 



In short, farm production has in- 

 creased since the war, not only in the 

 United States but quite generally 

 throughout the world. 



Output Runs Ahead 



The reason is plain. During the war 

 production increased outside Europe to 

 compensate for reduced production in 

 Europe. When Europe largely restored 

 its agriculture, the other countries did 

 not correspondingly decrease theirs. De- 

 mand has increased somewhat, through 

 the growth of population, but not pro- 

 portionately. As a result, the world's 

 output ran ahead of market require- 

 ments. Prices inevitably fell. Prac- 

 tically all agricultural countries today 

 have an agricultural problem on their 

 hands. 



Some European countries are strongly 

 urging a policy of agricultural expan- 

 sion in their colonies in Asia and Africa. 

 There is abimdant new acreage avail- 

 able there, as well as In Argentine and 

 the South American countries generally. 



Soviet Russia has an ambitious pro- 

 gram for expanding agriculture. It in- 

 volves three activities. 1. To encour- 

 age the smaller peasants to expand acre- 

 age and increase yield. 2. To promote 

 the so-called collective peasant farnu, 

 and, 3. To establish neW enlarged 

 government farms. 



England has set up "The Empire 

 Marketing Board" to encourage agricul- 

 ture. Its work includes biological re- 

 search, economic investigations, includ- 

 ing the organization of producers 

 associations, and a "Buy Within the 

 Empire" campaign to promote the 

 sale of products of the British domin- 

 ions. 



Other nations are striving also to 

 emulate the eflSciency of the American 

 farmers. We hold no corner on scien- 

 tific farming. Significant also is the 

 increasing use by other countries of 

 agricultural machinery. In five years, 

 exports of American farm machinery 

 have nearly doubUd, — have risen from " 

 $60,000,000 in 1924 to $116,650,000 in 



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