136 



Our National Food Supply. 



[may, 



One is often asked whether the United Kingdom could 

 become self-supporting in the matter of food. It is, perhaps, 

 rather an academic question, because the question of cost and 

 profit will always dominate the situation. However, I have 

 calculated w^hat an acre of arable land, suitably distributed, 

 could be made to yield of the main items of necessary food. 

 From the table opposite it will be seen that on an acre of arable 

 land, assuming the average yield of the arable land of to-day, 

 one person could be maintained for a year. We have a popula- 

 tion of 45-3 millions, and 46*1 million acres of cultivated land, 

 grass and arable, in the United Kingdom. We might think, 

 therefore, we could maintain our population and give in- 

 dividuals the same number of calories as they were getting 

 before the War. They would have to eat a little less meat and 

 a little more vegetables, but the diet would be a perfectly 

 healthy one. This calculation, however, assumes that all 

 the land of the country could be made to yield as well as the 

 present fraction that is under the plough. This fraction, 

 however, comprises by far the best land, and with all the im- 

 provements that we can consider possible in farming we could 

 not make the whole area yield as well as the current arable 

 land. The calculation also assumes that in the production of 

 meat and milk, theoretically perfect use is made of the cattle 

 food, whereas, in practice, before the War the country used 

 something like three times as much cattle food as would be 

 necessary for the theoretical output of meat and milk. Again, 

 the calculation assumes that all the land is devoted to feeding 

 human beings, whereas at the present time it has to support 

 in addition the horses, both those wanted on the farms and 

 those at work in the towns. Thus the table I have given you 

 is a curiosity only and has little bearing upon what we may 

 reasonably expect. 



All the same the food crisis is not over, and we must turn over 

 to a much greater extent to arable farming. , Quite apart from 

 question of price there will not be in future the same margin of 

 food in the world for importation that there was before the 

 War. Everywhere there has been a great withdrawal of labour 

 from the land, and this will be seen year by year in a diminution 

 in the total food supply. Moreover, the United Kingdom is . 

 fundamentally and without disguise very much poorer than it 

 was before the War and cannot purchase as it did once in the 

 common markets of the world. These factors will force us to 

 grow more of our own food and to pay the prices necessary to 

 make the arable farming, by which land this greater production 



