Okolona messenger. (Okolona, Miss.) 1900-current, 1914-12-24
MARKETING WORLDS
GREATEST PROBLEM
WE ARE LONG ON PRODUCTION,
SHORT ON DISTRIBUTION.
BY Peter Radford
lecturer National Farmers Union.

products is today the worlds greatest
problem and the war, while 1t has
brought its hardships, has clearly en-
phasiZed the importance of distribu-
ton as factor in American agricul-
ture and promises to give the farm
ers the cooperation of the govern
ment and the business men the
solution of their marketing problem.
This result will, in a measure, COM
pensate US for our war losses, for the
business interests and government
have been in the main assisting al
most exclusively on the production
side of agriculture While the depart
ment of agriculture has been dumping
tons Of literature on the farmer telling
him how to produce, the farmer has
been dumping tons Of products in the
nations garbage can for want of a
market.
The World Will Never StarVe.
At no time since Adam and Eve
we're driven from tie Garden of Eden
have the inhabitants of this world
suffered from lack of production but
some neople have gone hungry from
the day Of creation to this good hour
for the lack Of nroper distribution.
Slight variations in production have
forced a change in diet and one local
ity has felt the pirch of want while
another surfpited but the world as a
whole has ever been a land of plenty,
We now have less than ona-tenth Of
the tiPahlo lard Of the earths surface
under cul4ivotion ond We not only
have this surplus area to draw on tut
it is safe IN estimate that in case Of
dire necessity one-half the earth's
populati n cor'd at the present time
knock their LIVING out of the trees
of the f~roet gather it from wild
vines ard draw It from streams. No
one should become alarmed; the
world will never starve.
The coreumer has alwavs feared
that the producer would not supply
him and his FRIGHT has found express
sion on the statute books OF our states
and nations and the former mas peeh
urged TO produce rN"Kle'sly ana WIN
out reference 10 a market ana re'aru'
less 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 earth's surface con
tains 16.092,160000 idle acres of till
able land where they can make a
living by tickling the earth with a
forked stick, but we DO not need them
so far as increasing production is con
cerned; we now have all the producers
we can use. Tha city man has very
erroneous ideas Of agricultural condi
tions. The commonly accepted theory
that we are short on production is all
wrong. Our annual increase in pro
duction far exceeds that of our in
cyease in POPULATION.
The World as a Farm.
Taking the world as one big farm
We find two billion acres of land ir
cultivation. or this amount there is
annroximatelv Ten OnO nnO acres on the
western and $50 600 900 acres on the
eastern hemisphere, in cultivation
This estimate. of course. does not in
clude grazing lands. forests, etc.
whore larga nuantities of meat arC
nroduced
Tho worlds annual crop approxi
uates fifteen bil1ion bushels of ce
reals thirteen billion hounds of fibr,
and s,vtv.f1ve million tons of meat.
The average annual world crop fo1
the mast five wears comnared with tht
nrevious five Years is as follows:
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