Agricultural autarky
The suggestion that the Government is about to unveil a five-year plan to make the country less dependent on imports by growing more food is welcome — though surprising, given the resistance of the Prime Minister to import saving or control which he likes to label autarky. The balance of argument between those competent to judge is, on the one hand, that world population growth needs an additional 25 million tons of food a year: this school suggests that any rapid increase requires cheap fuel oil and fertilisers and that there is a biological limit to such an increase which we are approaching. Others believe, and we are inclined to agree, that current high prices will bring more land into cultivation and produce the revenue for research into new mechanical and chemical techniques, so that within the not too distant future there will be surpluses.
The nine members of the EEC anjoy a 91 per cent self-sufficiency in agriculture. Within the nine the Dutch are the best off with 123 per cent and the United Kingdom, not unexpectedly in its usual position, bottom with 54 per cent. Britain eats substantially less meat, green vegetables and oils and fats, but more cereals and twice as much sugar, and, most important, does not have more people to feed per acre of land (the Dutch are in fact feeding 40 per cent more people per acre). Where Britain differs — and it is in this regard that the new British five-year plan should concentrate — is that we use less of our resources in men and money. Holland employs 24 per 1,000 of the population, and Britain 13 persons per 1,000, in food production. There is no reason why we should not be virtually self-sufficient by value in food, given some display of will on the part of government.
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