The Natchitoches enterprise. (Natchitoches, La.) 1888-1965, 1915-04-08
MARKETING WORLDS
GREATEST PROBLEM
WE ARE LONG ON PRODUC-
TON, SHORT ON DISTRI-
BUTTON.
BY Peter Radford
Lecturer National Farmers Union

The economic distribution of
arm products is today the worlds
greatest problem and the war,
while it has brought its hardships,
has clearly emphasized the i'm
portance of distribution as a fact
or in American agriculture and
promises to give the farmers the
cooperation of the government
and the business men the solution
OF their marketing problem.
This result will, in a measure,
compensate us for Our war losses,
for the business interests and
government have been in the
main assisting almost exclusively
on the production side of agricul-
ture. While the department 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 Btarve.
At no time since Adam and |
Eve were driven from the Garden
of Eden have the inhabitants of
this world suffered from lack of
production, but some people have
gone hungry from the day Of Gre
alton to this good hour for the
lack Of proper distribution. Slight
variations in production have
forced a change in diet and one
locality has felt the pinch of want
while another surfeited, but the
world as whole has ever been
a land Of plenty.
We now have less than one
tenth of the tillable land of the
earth's surface under cultivation,
and we not only have this SUR
plus area to draw on but it is safe
to estimate that in case of dire ne
cessity one-half the earth's popu-
lation could knock their living out
Of the trees of the forests, gather
it from wild vines and draw it
from streams. No one should be-
come alarmed; the world will
never starve.
The consumer has always feared
hat the producer would not sup
ply him and his fright has found
expression on the statute books
If our states and nations, and the
armer has been urged to produce
and without reference
o market, and regardless of the
demands Of the consumer.
Back to the Soil.
The city people have been urg-
ng each other TO move back to
he farm, but very few of them
lave moved. We welcome our
ity cousins back to the soil and &
his earth's surface contains TO- Il
92, 10000 idle acres of tillable &
and where they can make a liv-
ng by tickling the earth with a !
orked stick, but we do not need
hem SO far as increasing produc-
ion is concerned. The city man 4
as very erroneous ideas Of agri- y
conditions. The common {
Y accepted theory that we are !
hort on production is all wrong.
)ur annual increase in produc-
ion far exceeds that Of our in
rease in population.
The World as Farm.
Taking the world as one big
arm, we find two billion acres Of .
md in cultivation. Ofthis amount
1ere is approximately 75O,OOO,OOO
ores on the western and $780,
10000 acres on the eastern hem
phere, in cultivation. This esti-
tate does not include grazing
nds, forests, ETC., where large
Quantities of meat are produced.
The worlds annual crop ap-
-oximates fifteen billion bushels
cereals, thirteen billion pounds 7
fibre and sixty-fve million
ms of meat.
The world shows an average
crease in cereal production of
per cent during the past de-
de, compared with the previous
1e years, while the worlds pop
alton shows an increase of only
per cent.
The gain in production far ex- :
eds that of our increase in pop- (
alton, and it is safe to estimate
at the farmer can easily in
ease production Is per cent if a
market can be