THE LIVESTOCK CRISIS
By FRANK SYKES THE news that the domestic egg-producer's ration is to be cut has been greeted as a major calamity in many households. On the farm the position is hardly less serious. In response to previous encouragement from official sources farmers have increased their head of poultry and pigs. Now the death-warrant has been signed ; numbers may fall to a new low record, the home production of eggs and bacon will hardly count in the nation's diet and the farmer will have suffered considerable financial loss. The other farm-animal to suffer will be the dairy cow. In this case numbers may not be affected, but the drop in production of milk, accompanied by a rise in cost, must alarm farmer and housewife alike.
Cows are fed rations in proportion to the milk they yield. Hay, kale and other bulky home-grown foods maintain the cow in health and are sufficient for her to produce about one gallon of milk a day through the winter months. The cow has a limited capacity to make use of these bulky foods. If she is to give a yield which in some cases rises to as much as nine gallons a day and more, she must receive some of her food in a more concentrated form, and especially she must be allowed sufficient protein in her diet. The farmer can grow, provided he receives due warning, the concentrated carbo- hydrates in the form of oats. In our climate peas and beans are the only comparable high-protein foods which can be grown at home unless he can face the capital expenditure on a grass-drying plant which runs into thousands of pounds. Peas present difficulty at harvest-time. They are easily spoilt by the weather, and demand much more hand labour than other crops. Beans are subject to insect pests and fungoid diseases which result, more often than not, in crop failures except in favoured localities. Hence few dairy farmers cap be self-supryting where concentrated proteins are concerned, unless they resign themselves to increased costs compared with the pur- chase of imported oil cakes. It is the high-yielding cow which produces cheap milk. The cost of maintaining the cow alive, the, cost of labour and overhead expenses is met by about the firsr. gallon and a quarter she produces per day. Production over and above that level has but to meet the price of 3-1- lbs. of concentrated food per gallon which is the usual ration scale. For this reason. the cost of milk-production rises steeply if production falls as the I result of a lack of such foodstuffs.
India must keep her ground nuts at home to help stave off famine instead of exporting them to our oil-crushing-mills as in the past ; but there are other sources of protein such as cotton seed and palm kernel, which are not human food. A few extra shiploads of either could be made to bridge the gulf. If the reduced rations were made available in the form of cattle-cake, most dairy farmers could make up with home-produced cereals. The present prospect of meeting a ten-shilling rise in wages added to the shortage of food must result in a substantial increase in the price of milk, or else farmers will reduce their commitments in a branch of the industry which has never been popular with master or man. If one takes a short or long view, the latter eventuality would be a disaster, especially in this country where we have never drunk as much milk per head as some of our neighbours, and where an increase in the consumption of milk must be relied on to meet the minimum diet standards where protective foods are concerned.
It is the fashion to decry the old order where planning was , carried out by the individual. Many believe that the State can plan better. The agricultural industry has much to gain from con- ditions where markets are assured and prices guaranteed ; but stability of markets and prices is useless except as a guide to stable and planned production. Such shocks and last-minute direc- tions as have been the lot of the farmer in the past six months cause heavy financial loss, leading to a lack of confidence. The moral is that if State planning is to be a help and not a hindrance it must be good planning. For the future, as in war-time, the dairy cow must have first priority. Whatever happens this winter, and it may be too late to take the necessary steps to alter the position, the requirements of our dairy herds must be assured for the winter of 1947-48. Poultry and pigs multiply rapidly, but their numbers must depend on the cereal-production abroad. Few fields suitable for corn-production in this country are not already part of a corn-rota- tion ; in fact, large acreages are ploughed where the cost of corn- production would not be warranted under more normal conditions. Any increase in home cereal-production in order to provide a better breakfast-table would put the price above what many house- wives could pay. Given imports at reasonable prices and timber to house the hens and the pigs, home-production could reach the pre-war level within two years.
But that raises another point. The price of wheat at Chicago, is now nearly 25 per cent. above the average paid to the farmer in this country. Before the war ships carried wheat as ballast at low rates, and some exporting countries subsidised freights ; now wheat must pay its way across the Atlantic. The cost of eggs and bacon is governed almost entirely by the cost of the food fed to the hen and the pig. There was a time, some seven years ago, when the farmer could buy wheat for less than he pays now for his household coal. Those were the days when it was profitable to sell eggs at ninepence per dozen. We may never see eggs or bacon so cheap in relation to other foods as they were in the period between the two wars. At present subsidies in various directions hide the true cost to the consumer, but it seems as if an egg would be cheap at four- pence if produced on imported wheat at today's prices and if wheat were available for this purpose. Without further inflation corn-prices overseas will drop as corn loses a scarcity value. However, there can be no return to anything approaching pre-war values of exportable farm-products without a slump on the same scale as in 1930. There is no hope of two eggs and bacon for breakfast until famine is conquered, and if and when they arrive on the table more freely they may well cost more than they do at present.
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