Can humanity be fed?

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NOTHING shocked the conscience

of mankind more during the
great slump in the 1930s than
the masses of food being destroy-
ed while millions starved.

Are we on the point of seeing
the same disgusting spectacle
ence again?

Mountains of unsaleable wheat
are accumulating in the United
States, Camada and Australia.

The U.S. acreage under wheat,
which was 78 million acres in
1953, is to be reduced to 58 mui-
lion acres in 1955.

When the acreage is reduced,
the income of the U.S. farmers
will fall. They are being penal-
ised because they have grown
too much wheat.

Not only farmers but ‘business
‘men are alarmed, because the re-
duction of farm incomes will nar-
row the U.S. market for manu
factured goods and extend the
existing slump.

But what about the world food
shortage? It is barely two month:
since the British House of Lords
raised the prospect of a hungrier
and poorer world before the eyes
of Britons. :

World population, the British
people were told, was increasing
‘much faster than world food pro-
‘duction. 100,000 new mouths
were being brought into the world
every day.

In 1900 the world population
was one billion; today about two
and a half billion; and by the
beginning of next century, five
billion. *

Of the two and one-half billion
people in the world today only
about 650 million were said to ‘be
adequately fed. The other one
and three-quarter billion had not
enough to feed on and their aver-
age expectation of life was far
below that of the favored part of
the world.

In India, for example, the av-
erage expectation of life is 27
years. In Britain it is 67 years

In England and Wales, 28 out
of every thousand infants under
cne year die each year; in Scot-
land, 36; in India, 116; in Guate-
mala, 75; in Honduras, 70; and
in Nicaragua, 82 per thousand.

A world where the majority of
people are not being properly fed
is hard to square with a world
threatened with increased unem-

By J. R. CAMPBELL

Canada is one of the great cattle-raising countries of the world.

ployment because farmers cannot
sell their wheat.

The explanation is that in the
capitalist countries production is
for profit and not to satisfy the
needs of the people.

The people of India, Africa,
Central and South America could
consume the apparently gigantic
wheat surplus in the twinkling of
an eye. They are too poor, how-
ever, to buy it.

The average income per head
of India and of Britain’s African
colonies — averaging rich and
poor—is below $110 per year. It
is between $150 and $225 in
Guatemala and between $110 and
$150 in Honduras and Nicaragua.
Imperialism has made these coun-
tries poor.

For decades it stopped normal

Modern ‘Canadian combines are

industrial development in India,
drove the artisans back to the
already over-crowded land, pre-
vented the accumulation of
wealth and so hindered the mod-
ernization of agriculture, while
draining ‘huge profits from the
country.

The imperialist countries wouid
be repairing only a fraction of
the damage which they have done
to the poorer countries in the
past if they combined to purchase
a part of the surplus food and
give it to them, without political
strings, through the Food and
Agricultural Organization of the
United Nations.

We say “part” of the surplus
advisedly, because in the surplus
countries themselves, like the
U.S. and Canada, there are still

many. people who would eat more
food if they could afford to buy
ate ; ;

The position is made abund-
antly clear by the United States
which is spending four and one-
half billion dollars this year in
so-called military aid and only
one and one-half billion dollars
in*economic and technical aid—
the greater part of the economic
aid, like the military, going to
highly developed capitalist coun-
tries.

Excluding expenditure in Ko-
rea, the total amount spent by
the U.S. in the Far East on eco-
nomic and technical assistance

in the last six months of 1953

was $75 million.

Of this, $60 million was spent
on Formosa. The rest was divid-

shown at work in a Saskatchewan wheat field.

PACIFIC TRIBUNE — AUGUST 20, 1954 —

_ dence and equal rights-

ed between Indochina, the
pines, Thailand, Burma @
conesia.

The “aid” granted by
to colonies is only a mis
tion of the profits extract
them by the big imperial xed BY
—and the “aid” is prove.
the taxpayer, not by the

prital#
frac
a from

ns
Surely it would be more ‘00
ible to stop draining PIO?” vid”
the Colonies first.
would be a genuine ;
their resources and 20
luctant handing back of * ious!
portion of the wealth Pre
extracted from them. 1d3
The key to tackling the Wendt
hunger is to grant colon’ °
pendence, and to stoP “|... py
bery of undeveloped cou# polies
the great imperialist mo?
q eop!e®

This would enable the Pores
themselves to raise thelr i nd
by developing new indust™

by scientific agriculture.

The world has not at t
ment too much food.

To feed all humanity 9°?"

is a’ vast task. :
rf

When the colonies. 2% pet

the way to a new wort, ¢ coum

ed. The former imperiallS’ “nes

nis

lf

J
ot
That is the only way out
for all time the scandal 04,
ing food surpluses alongs!
necessary hunger.

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