( 98 ) 



acres; China, 216; India, 126; and the United States, 1 

 only 30. 

 There are four main types of adjustment: 



1. that made possible by cold storage, warehouses, commercial ele- 

 vators, and farm storage. 



2. food in the form of livestock on the hoof. 



3. equalization through imports and exports. 



4. diversion of food to and from industrial uses. 



Current stocks of food adjust our day-to-day and month- 

 to-month needs and supplies. 



Livestock adjusts our food supplies over periods of a year 

 or two and over decades. 



Imports and exports adjust food supplies from generation 

 to generation, from year to year, and from month to month. 



Diversion of products between food and industry also ad- 

 justs our food supplies over long and short periods of time. 



Seasonal Stocks Adjust Short-Time Changes 



Normally more butter is produced in the spring and sum- 

 mer than is consumed. As a result the nation developed cold 

 storages to carry butter from these seasons of surplus to the 

 seasons of deficit production. This equalizes the consumer's 

 supply and his consumption of butter. The same general 

 principles hold for other foods. 



Nation Lives Largely from Hand to Mouth 



One who sees pictures of the large number of beef carcasses 

 in the meat cooler of a modern packing plant or the tremen- 

 dous stocks of canned goods in the warehouses of a nation- 

 wide food distributor might conclude that the nation could 

 be fed indefinitely from its accumulated stocks of food. It is 

 popularly believed that all the available stocks are surpluses. 

 These normal carry-overs are not surpluses. Because produc- 



1 Mukerjee, R.: Food Planning for Four Hundred Millions (London: 

 Macmillan and Co.; 1938), page 6. 



