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Show Women Purchasers Can Aid U. S. Farmers A Fitting Family's Diet With Farm Production Helps U. 5. War Effort America's 6,000,000 farmers today aren't feeding a mere 132,000,000 citizens of the United States. They are also responsible re-sponsible for filling huge gaps in the food supplies of most of the free world the uniformed and civilian. This is a large order. " ' "' - 3-1 r xiA just took it for granted, CWta i -Lntci shipping, due to the war, cu off important sources of raw ma terials, of which sugar is one At the same time, industrial uses of sugar have increased. Today's price ceiling on sugar, however, is lower than might have been expected. For this the buyer can thank a sugar program which provides payments to growers that are helping them step up produc- UConservation on the farm may, seem a far cry from top quality let-tuce let-tuce or potatoes or green beans, it may seem even farther from tender meats or milk rich in butter fat. And farther still from lower prices. But farmers know, and consumers consum-ers should be aware, that soil-build-in g and soil-conserving practices mean larger yields and better quality. quali-ty. Well-nourished land produces better crops than depleted soil. Wholesomeness Guaranteed. Regulatory laws administered by the United States department of agriculture ag-riculture directly affect homes and consumer income and buying power. Consumers are protected against mis-branding, substitutions and swindling swin-dling by the Pure Food, and Drug act. It provides a safeguard for wholesome foodstuffs, thereby protecting pro-tecting both health and pocketbook. Research activities of the department depart-ment are equally related to consumer consum-er interests. Sixty-five research "laboratories" have experiments constantly in procress. They don't just develop cloth from milk and plastics from soybeans. They also determine methods of increasing in-creasing production and strengthening strengthen-ing the quality of farm products. Foods are carefully analyzed by experts so that their vitamin and mineral content can be accurately given. Nutrition studies set up minimum min-imum food requirements, show how they may be met at the least cost and what available foods may be sub-stituted sub-stituted for those on the scarce list or headed that way. Steering Food Purchases. These nutrition studies are of particular par-ticular interest to the housewife. She is faced with the problem of providing provid-ing her family with enough to eat to maintain health and efficiency. They will need all the help they' can get from the consumer at home if they are to continue to fill steadily growing lend-lease orders from the United Nations. The consumer Is a woman. If you're a man, you'll probably say, "Heyl What about me?" Well, Mister, you're practically nobody when it comes to deciding what you'll eat and what you'll wear. Women buy 80 per cent of the food sold and 75 per cent of the clothing. Further than that, they influence almost all customer purchasing. pur-chasing. This Is where the housewife can offer one of the greatest contributions to winning the war. She can see to it that the diet of her family fits in with farm production and the shortages short-ages created by the war. She should be informed on the problems prob-lems involved in producing the goods she wants and getting them into her hands. As the buyers for some 34 million households from coast to coast, women have a tremendous responsibility respon-sibility to the families they feed and clothe. During 1942 the farmer has marked the highest production level CONSUMER'S CREED I will buy what is plentiful. I will buy what is fresh. I will buy what Is produced locally. lo-cally. I will buy what the government asks me to buy through the Victory Food Program. I will not hoard or waste food. In history. At the same time, annual an-nual Income payments nationally have increased some 20 billions of dollars. But crop goals met and passed, and an income increase of over 17 per cent, don't mean that the housewife house-wife can go out and buy whatever sire wants and as much as she wants. Since Pearl Harbor, the consumer picture has undergone radical changes. "Scarcity," "ceiling price" and "rationing" have become common com-mon words. Food is no longer readily available if the housewife has the price to pay. Some of her old - time staples are on the "scarce" list, items such as tea, bananas, coffee and sugar. Off-the-farm consumers, the urban group, comprise over 75 per cent of the population of the United States. Foodstuffs and clothing combined account for about 40 per cent of every ev-ery dollar spent by the average urban ur-ban family. It is therefore obvious that at no previous time has women's good management in buying been more important. Give Consumer Protection. Urging consumers and remember remem-ber that, means women to take heed of the farmer's problems, brings out the little-known fact that the U. S. department of agriculture in return does not forget consumer protection in its farming for freedom free-dom program. When the housewife buys fresh vegetables from day to day, she isn't likely to think much about the fact that the vegetables arrived on season schedule, that they were in sufficient quantity and that the price was "right." It's only when those conditions didn't exist that she might begin to wonder how her table ta-ble is served. Then she would learn that by taking tak-ing the "long view" for both farmer and consumer safety, the over-all agricultural program results in uniform uni-form distribution of farm commodities, commodi-ties, an even flow of goods into Fresh vegetables head the market list of this housewife. Her family is well-nourished because America's farmers are doing their part for wartime health and efficiency. homes, prevention of market scarcities scarci-ties and glutted markets, and provision pro-vision of benefits in price and quality. qual-ity. The Victory Specials, announced an-nounced from week to week, are part of this plan. They use up products which are plentiful, often preventing waste and loss to the farmer, and allowing the buyer to take advantage of diet variations at a better price. Whether or not the consumer's needs are met really depends upon the accuracy with which production produc-tion has been scheduled to obtain an adequate and steady supply of food at prices fair alike to producers and consumers. This is the consumer's best insurance against the problems of scarcity. , Something known as "acreage allotment" al-lotment" is now being used to increase in-crease production of certain crops needed for the war, a part of the change-over from normal peace-time farming to all-out war production. The farmer is converting his fields to war production just as surely as the manufacturer turns his machines from automobiles to airplanes. Production without adjustment would be Inexcusable waste at any time. In wartime it is criminal. What Crop Reserves Do. Probably Mrs. Average Housewife wouldn't be able to tell you what an Ever-Normal granary is but she's enjoying the advantages of living under a farming system that provides pro-vides for crop reserves. In recent years, lots of wheat, corn and other products have been stored against a time when crops might be smaller or demands greater. When drouth once pushed corn production as much as 40 per cent below normal, meat prices skyrocketed and consumers con-sumers suffered hardships. But now with the Ever-Normal granary's stored reserves of more than 25 per cent of a normal year's crop, there is plenty of feed to convert into meat, eggs, and dairy products. "Crop Insurance" has a formidable formi-dable sound, but it is a simple procedure that pays big dividends divi-dends to the consumer as well as to the producer who meets the premiums. Such insurance keeps farmers in business producing pro-ducing needed goods by guaranteeing guaran-teeing them, for example, some wheat or cotton income every year even if a crop fails. This protection gives farmers the assurance as-surance they need to go in for production of critical war crops. That's consumer protection for ev-erybody, ev-erybody, even if it doesn't occur to the woman who buys a loaf of bread. Housewives are currently faced with the necessity of cutting down on sugar, once so much a part of their regular purchases that they I, v tS.Mf - fit &V i This young homemaker is choosing choos-ing her dinner vegetables from the wide variety sent to market every day by the nation's farmers. Her family will get plenty of vitamins. She must steer her food buying so that supplies may be used to the best advantage and at the same time provide the highest consumer satisfaction. The individual buyer these days must think always of her purchases as they relate to those of the 34 million other American housewives what the result would be if that buying were multiplied by 34 million. mil-lion. Would it create new scarcity or make a scarce food nonexistent? Or would it have the effect of utilizing uti-lizing the foods that are available in abundance? Alarm over possible increased food costs has been evidenced by some homemakers. The retail cost of a basket of foods, representing annual family purchases, amounted to $405 in September, 1942, an increase in-crease of $73 over the pries of tlje same foods in the period from 1935-39, 1935-39, but the cost was stiil $!0 lower than in 1929. Workingmen's families today can buy a basket of specified food products prod-ucts for the smallest share of family income on record since 1913. In September, Sep-tember, 1942, it required only 22 per cent of the family income. During the preceding five years the same food basket accounted for 27 per cent of the income. Average family income has been rising more rapidly rapid-ly than food prices during the last three years and through the first 10 months of 1942. Reasons include higher wage rates, more hours of work per week with overtime pay-ments, pay-ments, and more persons employed. The family averaging five persons this fall reached a wage level 57 per cent higher than the prewar aver-age aver-age for 1935-39. This seems to indicate that the housewife's food problems will not be those of capacity to buy but rath-er rath-er of the market's ability to supply her needs. ' Reaching her goal-just as the farmer meets his production coal-will coal-will mean that scarcity of some particular par-ticular type of food will be a mat-ter mat-ter of unconcern to any American so long a8 he abIe t0 eat Lf .4 r r;v- W.ia'ii.i ',''Vt'. 'stat Ant . wiUsV! m tosi a as? 1' -v i Marketing his produce is the final step in the farmer's program of supplying; the American table. |