246 CONSUMPTION 



trade has rather favoured the maximum immediate production and 

 consumption at whatever cost to the future. Animal foodstuffs 

 have been especially open to abuse in this way because the con- 

 sumption of them is in Europe highly elastic, and because the 

 production of them causes, as has been shown, a heavy drain upon 

 agricultural resources which cannot always be maintained or replaced. 

 Neither public opinion nor the various State governments have 

 been alive to the importance of regulating consumption in accord- 

 ance with the conditions of immediate and future supplies. 



The amount of waste is another factor that influences the rate 

 of consumption of animal foodstuffs. This question has not been 

 as yet carefully investigated, but it is known that the total quan- 

 tities of anima] foodstuffs that are lost by waste in different ways 

 are by no means inconsiderable. Much of this waste is of such a 

 form as to be avoidable with proper organisation and management. 



Waste occurs in connection with perishable foodstuffs such as 

 those of animal origin in all stages between the first steps in pro- 

 duction and the final act of consumption as food, owing to deteri- 

 oration of qualit}^, if not actual putrefaction. 1 In the fields of pro- 

 duction and wholesale distribution much has been done to reduce 

 waste by the introduction of cold storage, but in retailing and in 

 the field of consumption, much waste arises in warmer climates, 

 and during the warmer season of the year in cooler ones, merely 

 through the tendency to putrefaction. 2 



Great distances in the newer countries frequently separate the 

 farms whence dairy and poultry products originate from the con- 

 suming centres, and waste is apt to arise by deterioration and by the 

 first stages of decay both before the goods leave the farms and while 

 they are in transit. Transport facilities in such regions are often 

 poor, and perishable products sometimes pass through the hands 

 of a chain of intermediaries ; both of these circumstances natur- 

 ally tend to loss by wastage. 3 The waste due to bad market organi- 

 sation and to inadequate cold storage facilities on the producing 

 farms and in the consuming households is largely involuntary so 

 far as individuals are concerned. It can only be reduced by better 

 social organisation, by remedying the present defects in the facili- 

 ties for the proper storage of small quantities, and by simplifying 

 the present systems of marketing. Waste from this cause is much 



1 In the United States it has been estimated that 30% to 40% at least of 

 the entire production of perishables (including dairy produce, poultry and 

 eggs, fruits and vegetables) in that country are lost through decay before 

 reaching the consumer. Columbia Univ. Research Series, " Marketing 

 Perishable Farm Products," 1911, p. 25. 



2 The high rate of loss from this source in Australia (where cold storage 

 facilities are inadequate) has been given as one of the reasons for the extra- 

 ordinarily high per capita consumption of meat in that country. 



3 The loss of eggs, for example, in the United States, arising from improper 

 handling on the way to the consumer has been estimated at 17% of the total 

 production, and is said to have represented a value of 45 million dollars 

 annual!} 7 . U.S. Dept. Agric., Bulletin 141, Bureau An. Ind., 1911, p. 11. 



