Abstract
SINCE the eighties of last century, the main effort of British agriculture has been steadily and increasingly diverted from crop growing to the production of live stock and live stock products. According to recent statistics these now account for about two thirds of the total value of the agricultural output of England and Wales, and an even higher fraction of the Scottish output. This expansion of live stock production with a dwindling arable acreage has only been made possible by the import of feeding-stuffs, which has shown a corresponding rise to a level in recent years of about 7¾ million tons per annum. This represents, according to Wright's estimates, in terms of 'starch equivalent' about 22 per cent of the total nutrients consumed by live stock in a normal year (1935), the balance of 78 per cent being obtained from home-produced fodders, roots and corn. In these terms of gross supply, the proportion of imports does not appear to be unreasonable; but in terms of concentrated foods the balance assumes a very different aspect, since imports are entirely of this class and amount to more than twice the home-grown supply of concentrates. It is inevitable, therefore, that in times of crisis involving shipping difficulties the supply of imported feeding-stuffs, unless vast reserves have previously been accumulated, must rapidly become a serious problem for the live-stock industry, compelling some change of policy, more or less drastic, for the early stages, if not for the whole period, of the crisis.
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CROWTHER, C. Live Stock Policy During War-Time. Nature 145, 284–286 (1940). https://doi.org/10.1038/145284a0
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/145284a0