1942: Conservation

If "defense" was the slogan for 1941, "conservation"

superseded it in 1942. The American public has been asked
to conserve everything from paper to coffee, and from rubber
to manpower. Much of the program of conservation has
become involuntary through the actual exhaustion of supplies
or through anticipated shortage which have led to the
priorities system of distribution and use. And in recent weeks
some of it has become compulsory through the medium of
rationing
• The outstanding development in the Work Projects
Administration program during 1940 was the provision
made for more extensive use of its organization and
personnel in strengthening the defenses of the Nation.
Legislation passed by Congress facilitated the
cooperation of the WPA in the defense program and at
the same time provided for continuance of its operation
of the principal program of supplying jobs for
unemployed persons in need. Concentration on defense
work was encouraged by exempting projects that are
certified by the Secretary of War or the Secretary
• The production of food and fibers
throughout the world, though greater in
1948 than in any of the preceding postwar
years, was still considerably below the
prewar level, while the world's population
was about 9.4 per cent greater. Only
forest products showed an increase over
prewar production.
• Agricultural reports to the Food and Agricultural
Organization of the United Nations discouraged
the hope that the food emergency would soon
be over. These reports agreed that even the
physical damage left by the war had been
greatly underestimated, not to mention the less
tangible but graver injury inflicted on the co-
operative world economy. With few exceptions,
the agricultural areas of the world lacked
machinery, fertilizer, insecticides, and
occasionally even seeds. They also had poor
transportation facilities
• World food supplies for the 1948-1949 consumption year
will be larger than in any of the preceding postwar years.
Marked agricultural recovery in Europe, larger crops in
Canada, and record United States crop output in 1948
increased world supplies of food considerably,
particularly supplies of bread grains and feed grains.
Surplus producing areas of Eastern Europe and Russia
probably will send as much food to Western Europe as
they did in 1947-1948. Production of main food crops in
the rest of the world may be about the same as in the
previous year.
• World exports of grain and grain products,
exclusive of rice, for the year ended June 30,
1948, totaled 34,600,000 long tons, nearly all of
which was for direct human consumption. This
compared with 28,500,000 tons exported a year
earlier, the prewar (1934-1938) average of
28,200,000 tons, and the all-time record of
40,600,000 tons in 1928-1929. Approximately 90
per cent of the 1947-1948 exports were supplied
by four countries — the United States, Canada,
Argentina, and Australia.
• When World War II ended, the world's most
urgent food problem was production, which had
declined disastrously in most countries. Famine
threatened whole continents. Only the countries
of North America had been able during the war
to increase their agricultural output significantly.
Food production was far below the prewar level
in most of continental Europe and in North
Africa. It was only slightly above the prewar level
in South America, where extensive droughts
occurred in 1944 and 1945.
• Africa.

• Many territories in sparsely populated Africa

came out of the war with expanded farming and
with new industries and mines. Nevertheless,
African dietary standards averaged low.
Agriculture faced the double problem of
increasing its production for domestic
consumption and providing more for export to
pay for equipment and consumers' goods
• In the war years French North Africa changed
from a food-surplus to a food-deficit area, and
meanwhile its population increased. After the
war, it suffered from droughts. In 1947 its wheat
production was only two-thirds of the prewar
average; production of olive oil in Tunisia was
much below average. Citrus production and
other fruits expanded, but livestock numbers and
production dropped.
• British East Africa expanded its farm
production during and after the war.
Export crops included sisal, coffee,
pyrethrum, tea, tobacco, oils, and spices.
Food-processing developed in the area.
An extensive peanut program developed
to cultivate considerable land formerly
almost uninhabited
• Australia continued to produce both grain and
livestock products and also sugar for export. Its
wheat crop in 1947-1948 was a record —
6,000,000 metric tons as compared with a
prewar average of 4,000,000. Barley and oats
crops were large. Meat production and sugar
were below the prewar level. Peanut production
increased in previously undeveloped areas as
part of a plan to diversify the country's
agriculture.
• France and the Netherlands stiffened food
controls in the 1947-1948 consumption year.
France reduced its bread consumption,
increased the flour extraction rate, and obliged
bakers to mix coarse grain liberally with wheat.
The Netherlands reduced its bread, milk, and
cheese rations; but increased the meat ration.
Some European countries increased their food
consumption. Belgium meat, as did Switzerland.
• Prices rose sharply during 1947-1948 in
most European countries, agricultural
prices more than other prices, though they
were subject extensively to government
controls. Livestock products were
commonly three times the prewar average
price
• Food production and nutrition levels in
Latin America in 1947-1948 were above
the prewar average. Eight Latin-American
countries showed an increase of 200 over
the prewar level in average calories
available per person per day. These
countries were Argentina, Brazil, Chile,
Colombia, Cuba, Mexico, Peru, and
Uruguay. The increase was general for all
the countries represented.
• .

• The assets of agriculture viewed as a single

industry increased during 1947 from
$110,000,000,000 to $122,000,000,000. Farm
real estate increased in valuation from
$59,000,000,000 to $63,000,000,000; other
physical assets from $31,000,000,000 to
$37,000,000,000. As in other recent years, these
changes were caused mostly by higher prices.
• In December the Department of Agriculture
assembled the year's agricultural facts. With the
prices of many farm products declining, farmers'
cash receipts from marketing were below those
of a year earlier. Receipts from marketing from
January 1 through November 30 were 2 per cent
above those of the first eleven months of 1947.
Farm costs, however, showed a still greater
increase.
• .
• The Agricultural Act of 1948 extends price-
support provisions similar to those now in effect
to basic commodities marketed before June 30,
1950, and to commodities marketed before Jan.
1, 1950. After these dates it provides a new
method of calculating parity prices for all
commodities and a new schedule of support
prices for the basic commodities. After Jan. 1,
1950, price support activities for except
potatoes, are discretionary.
• Congress has authorized large loan funds each
year since the war; yet the backlog of loan
applications continues to grow. In 1945, R.E.A.
had a backlog of $225,000,000 in loan
applications on hand or being processed in the
field. Although loans totaling $816,491,077 were
approved during this three-year period, the
backlog on June 30, 1948, had swollen to
$363,031,485. Funds available to meet these
unfilled requests and others likely to be made
during fiscal 1949 approximated $500,000,000.
• .
• Floods in the Columbia River basin and other events in
1948 gave new emphasis to watershed protection. A
survey by Forest Service technicians during and after the
floods in the Pacific Northwest indicated that watershed
conditions contributed to flood peaks. Extraordinary
weather conditions and quick snow melt were immediate
causes of the flood, but the technicians found ample
evidence that considerable water would have been held
back if millions of headwater acres had not previously
been deprived of their forest cover, mainly by forest fires.
• .
• Watershed protection is vital in the
management of western national forest
areas used for livestock grazing. Some
80,000,000 acres of forest and
intermingled range land within the national
forests are suitable for grazing, and much
of this land is important as a source of
water for irrigation, power, and domestic
supplies. Nearly 9,000,000 animals use
these national forest ranges