( 9 ) 



icy of supplying food not only to our military forces and to 

 our civilian population, but also to our allies and to the re- 

 habilitation of depressed peoples throughout the world. The 

 Secretary of Agriculture estimates that the requirements of 

 our own military forces and our allies represent one fourth 

 or more of the estimated food production of 1943. 



Except during World War I this nation has always taken 

 its food supply for granted. During the thirties the idea of 

 overproduction of food became so firmly rooted that we be- 

 gan to think in terms of permanent agricultural surpluses. 

 The solution to the food problem took the form of the slaugh- 

 ter of little pigs, acreage control, and accumulating sur- 

 pluses. 



Concern for the nation's "ill-fed third" has always been 

 good politics. With abundant supplies of food and low prices, 

 the nation decided that it was good economics as well. Sub- 

 sidized consumption was introduced as the solution to the 

 surplus-food problem. 



The popular discovery of the vitamin provided a field day 

 for the nutritionists. To a considerable extent the nutri- 

 tious diet of the United States has been provided by the 

 condensation of cereal grains into livestock products such as 

 milk, meat, and eggs. The abundant supply of food in recent 

 years, together with its low cost, made a nutritious diet fea- 

 sible. Only with an abundant supply of food can a nation 

 afford to count its vitamins instead of its calories. 



The wisdom of our peacetime food strategy at best was 

 controversial, but such strategy has no place in a food pro- 

 gram in time of war. Ten years of the psychology of surplus 

 had sold us on the idea that production was not a problem, 

 that additional requirements on our food supply could be 

 met without difficulty, that food prices should be kept low, 

 and that no nutritional sacrifices need be made. 



It is from these inherited ideas that some of our present 



