Show WORLDS GREATEST PROBLEM WE ARE LONG ON production SHORT ON distribution by peter radford lecturer national farmers union the iho economic distribution ot of tam farm products Is today the worlds greatest problem and the war while it has brought its hardships has clearly emphasized pha sized the importance of distribution as aa a factor actor in american agriculture and promises to give tho the form farm era the cooperation ot of the government and tho the business men the solution on ot of their marketing problem this result will in a measure compensate us for our war losses for the business interests Inte reata and government have been in the main assisting almost exclusively on the production side ot of agriculture while the depart ment of agriculture has been dumping tons ol of literature on the farmer telling him how to produce the farmer lies hog been bcd n dumping tons ot of products in the tint nn tlona iOns garbage can for want of a market tile the world will never starve at no time since adamand eve were driven irom from the garden of eden have the inhabitants of this world suffered from lack ot of production but some people have gone hungry front from the day of creation to this good hour for the lack of proper distri distribution aution slight variations in production have hava foreid n u change in diet and one locality has I 1 sit the pinch of want while another surfeited surfeit bd but tile the world as a whole has ever been a land of plenty we now have less leia than one tenth of the tillable land of the earths surface under cultivation and we not only have this surplus area to draw on but it Is safe to estimate that in case of dire necessity one halt half the ea earths population could at the present ta time me knock their living out of the trees of the forest gather it from wild vines and draw it from streams no one should become alarmed the world will never starve th tha 0 consumer has always feared that the producer would not supply him and his fright has bas found expression on the statute books of our states and nations and the farmer has been urged to produce recklessly and without reference to a market and regardless of the demands of the consumer back to the soil the city people have been urging each other to move back to the farm but very few of them have moved we welcome our city cousins back to the soil and this earths surface c contains on idle acres of tillable land where they can make a living by tickling the earth with a forked stick hut but we do not need them so 80 far as aa indrea increasing sing production Is concerned we now have nil fill the producers produce ra we can we use the c y man has very erroneous ideas of agricultural conditions the commonly accepted theory that we are short on production Is all wrong our annual increase in production far ar exceeds that ot of our increase in population the world as a farm tr king the world as aa one big farm we hid fial two billion acres ot of land in cultivation of this amount there la Is approximately acres on tho the western and acres on the eastern Lemi hemisphere sphere in cultivation this estimate of course does not include grazing lands forests a etc to where large quantities of meat are produced the worlds annual crop mutes mites fifteen billion bushels of cereals thirteen billson pounds of febre fibre and sixty alve million tons of meat the average annual world crop ru for r the past five years yeara compared with the previous live five years la Is as follows past halt half previous half crops decade decade corn bu Wheat Bu oats hu bit Ol Cotton Gales Bales the world shows show 3 an average increase in ili cereal production of 13 per cent during the past decade compared with the previous five years while the worlds population shows an increase of only three per cent the gain in prod production action fw exceeds that of our increase in population find and it to Is safe to estimate that the farmer can easily increase production 25 per cent it if ft a remunerative market can be found folind for the prod predicta pro dicta nela in textile flares fibres the world shows an increase during the past half decade in production of 15 per cent against a population increase of three per cent the people of this nation should address themselves to the subject of improved facilities for distribution |