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Show FOOD ABUNDANT WICKARD SAYS Crops Are So Good We and Allies Can Get Along With Few Curbs. WASHINGTON. With another year of record food production in sight, the United States should be able to feed her Allies and herself with rationing in only a few exceptional excep-tional cases, Secretary Wickard said after the first meeting of the new food requirements committee. The nine-man committee heard from Chairman Wickard a departmental depart-mental crop report indicating ample supplies, and was assured that military mili-tary needs would be considered first in their apportionment. At a press conference later Secretary Secre-tary Wickard said the committee had discussed how army, navy, lease-lend and civilian representatives representa-tives might be brought together so that the farmers could be told how much to produce and the War Production Pro-duction board informed how much material would be needed to process, store and ship the crops. There would have to be a compromise between be-tween their respective wants, said Mr. Wickard, but he believed that by working together the food problem prob-lem could be met with "minimum sacrifice" to all concerned. Hopes to Avoid Rationing. "I hope rationing can be avoided with very few exceptions," he said. "I believe we are going to have another an-other year of record-breaking production. pro-duction. Cheese production has been stepped up almost 50 per cent over a year ago. There is a plentiful supply sup-ply now for the British and ourselves. our-selves. "As for meat rationing, I don't believe it will be necessary to ration pork. Occasionally some butcher shop may not have every kind of pork customers will like. But we are going to have 10,000,000 more hogs coming -to- market this year than ever before. "We are worrying about it. We are asking the farmers to ship them early. The time may come this year when a farmer will have to get a permit to ship his hogs. Any shortage short-age of pork will only be temporary and meanwhile we will have plentiful plenti-ful supplies of beef, lamb, poultry and eggs, all the high-protein loods." Mr. Wickard said his department was studying the dehydration of pork and beef to permit shipping economies. econo-mies. As to wheat, the secretary reminded re-minded reporters that there was an enormous crop in prospect to be added add-ed to a huge carryover. If it were not for the fact that the law did not permit wheat allotments totaling less than 55,000,000 acres, the department de-partment would allot only 21,000,000 acres next year. ' Sugar Supply Low. Asked whether sugar rationing j was still necessary, the secretary said that it would not be if there were shipping enough to bring available avail-able supplies from Cuba and elsewhere, else-where, but "you don't want to scrape the cupboard bare when you don't know what the shipping situation may be." He referred to a department of agriculture report on the world sugar sug-ar situation issued recently. According Accord-ing to this, the world supply this year is 3,500,000 tons smaller than last The supply of sugar in nearby, near-by, off-shore producing areas was larger this year than in 1941, but "because of the marine shipping situation, sit-uation, lend-lease needs and difficulties diffi-culties in continental rail transport, the quantity of sugar for use within the continental United States is expected ex-pected to be the smallest in years." Mr. Wickard said he hoped that the food program would involve a minimum mini-mum interference with the normal distribution channels in the United States. : |