World Shortage Of Rice

MOVING for maximum production of rice this year and mobilisation of stocks for commercial use, the In ternational Emergency Food Council Com mittee on Rice has asked governments of all areas where rice is produced to re port at once the impediments limiting greater rice production and mobilisation of commercial stocks.

The shortage of rice for hundreds of millions of consumers in the Far East is a crucial factor in the entire world food situation states a report issued by the United Nations Organisation. For the current crop year (ending June 30, 1947) import supplies of rice available in the world and allocated by the lEFC amount to but 2,800,000 metric tons. This amount has to supply nations which before the war imported over 7,7000,000 tons and which now have larger populations to feed than before the war.

This extreme shortage saps the health and working ability of the rice-eating peoples. It also increases the shortage of cereals other than rice, abnormally large supplies of which have got to go to the Far East to make up part of the deficit in rice. This draft in turn pulls down the stocks of cereals available for the other nations of the world, the state ment said.