APPENDIX TO CHAPTER II. 



Note on the cost of the dietary of a given population in terms of 

 the agricultural re ources required for, and the costs of production 

 of, various kinds of foodstuffs. 



The total per capita cost of the foodstuffs of any section of the 

 world's population, other things being equal, depends upon the 

 proportion in which the two great classes of foodstuffs, plant and 

 animal, enter into the dietary, since this determines mainly the 

 agricultural resources required per head. The cost of nourishment 

 in terms of agricultural resources per capita for the dense Asiatic 

 populations that live mainly or entirely upon produce of the plant 

 kingdom is exceedingly low. While it is neither possible nor de- 

 sirable for white peoples to reduce their dietary to the same stan- 

 dard, the study of this great difference between Asiatics and Whites 

 throws light upon the economic principles underlying the consump- 

 tion of foodstuffs in relation to production and costs. From one 

 point of view the consumption of all but quite limited quantities 

 of animal foodstuffs in any region within reach of the international 

 markets represents a kind of luxury habit ; and the consumption 

 of certain animal foodstuffs such as prime beef is more so than that 

 of others. This is so, because practically all kinds of finished 

 animal foodstuffs necessitate, at least in part, a diversion of crop- 

 producing resources from direct human consumption ; it is much 

 more costly to produce a unit of human food values in the form of 

 meat, or even dairy produce. The feeds tuffs required by food- 

 producing animals for maintenance apart from production, which, 

 on the average, represent over one-half of the total feedstuffs 

 consumed, 1 are a loss that is never replaced. Thus, after a certain 

 point, the greater the land area devoted to pastures and to feed- 

 crops for such animals, the more expensive the dietary of the con- 

 suming population becomes under modern conditions of restricted 

 agricultural resoui ces . 2 



The question becomes more striking when the growth of popu- 

 lation, by making the limitation of the resources in agricultural 

 land to be more keenly felt, forces up the price of such land. On 

 the consumption side, the problem for the near future for white 

 populations in both the Old and the New World may be to discover, 

 and to become accustomed to the consumption of, efficient sub- 

 stitutes directly from the plant kingdom for part of the present 

 consumption of animal foodstuffs. In this way the demand upon 

 the available agricultural resources would be reduced to some 

 extent, and the tendency for all foodstuffs, including those of 

 animal origin, to rise in price, would be checked. In practice 

 such changes in consumption would scarcely take place except 

 under the pressure of high prices for foodstuffs relative to pur- 

 chasing power. As a temporary measure these changes might be 



1 U.S. Dept. of Agric., Bureau of Animal Industry, Bulletin 143, p. 8, 

 ',See also p. 265 btlovr. 



