More Food for the World
Since the Report of the Preparatory Commission on World Food proposals is a document of ninety-five pages which is perfectly capable of serving as a standard text-book of the problems of world food production and consumption, it is unlikely that public comment will exhaust all its characteristics in the first few days following its publication. It would certainly not be possible to accuse the Com- mission of having failed to see through the present tangle of food shortages to the broader prospect of the future. Indeed, it seems to have run closer to the opposite danger and so enlarged its inquiry into health standards and agricultural prices as to approach the ultimate generality that everything depends on everything else. Nevertheless, the Commission has not become completely enmeshed in that danger. It was in a good position to see the possibility of over- production of agricultural commodities in the next few years. To anyone living on the present British ration scale that danger may appear a little remote, but the accumulated experience of the trade cycle, which indicates plainly that nearly all depressions begin with a fall in the prices of primary products, is enough to demonstrate that it is very real. But equally real is the fact of malnutrition among the majority of the world's population. Consequently, the central problem is the expansion of eft ective consumption to make full use of any quantity of production at present foreseeable. This problem the Commission set squarely before it. Its analysis of the factors involved, and its recommendations for agricultural and industrial expansion (which will involve an increased volume of international lending), inter-governmental commodity arrangements, buffer stocks, marketing of surpluses and annual reviews by the F.A.O. Conference are practical, despite the breadth of their sweep.
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