ioo 



such stocks of food represent only a small part of our Lend- 

 Lease exports and an even smaller part of domestic con- 

 sumption. Therefore the nation must look to current produc- 

 tion for its own food supply or for any that it expects to 

 give away. 



Food Stored in Form of Livestock 



Since the problem of unstable production cannot be met 

 by storing crops, it must be met in some other way. This is 

 done by storing food in the form of livestock on the hoof. 

 Livestock serves to condense, to refine, and to store large 

 quantities of cheap and bulky foods into small quantities of 

 concentrated and expensive food, to be made available six 

 months to two or three years later. Livestock numbers are 

 increased after abundant crops and are liquidated in years 

 of short supplies. Since time immemorial, without recogni- 

 tion and without subsidy, farmers have operated an "ever 

 normal" granary in the form of livestock on the hoof. Live- 

 stock is usually the only feasible way of carrying excess food. 

 In this form the food is immediately available in time of 

 need. 



There is no cheap way of carrying a surplus of food from 

 one year to the next. Livestock on the hoof might appear to 

 some folks to be a cheap way of carrying food. To carry much 

 pork on the back of a hog after it reaches nine months of 

 age is an expensive process. To carry much beef on the back 

 of a steer after he is two years old, or to carry that type of 

 beef for which New York and other dairy states are famous 

 on the backs of old canner cows after they are eight or nine 

 years old, is also expensive. Carrying food supplies in the 

 form of livestock on the hoof beyond the period of efficient 

 growth is not a cheap way of equalizing the food supply. The 

 animals might be killed and stored in refrigerators, but there 

 is not sufficient cold storage. Since we do not have sufficient 



