Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1939-09-17
Germany's Food Bins to East
And South Cut Blockade Peril
Reich May Be Hungry, but Indications Are
She Won't Starve If Danubian Basin
Resources Can Be Developed
By Blair BoHes.

The Germans have 1t on the WORD OF
Marshal Goering that they are going to
eat, despite the war and the combination
of geography and the British blockade
which cuts them of from America.
Germany's food bin lies to her east
and south now that the country no more
can import the wheat and corn and
barley and oats and meat and bran and
coffee which were being shipped in
large quantities from the Western Henri
sphere until September 3. The marshal,
well-fed himself, was probably right re-
Gently when he said, I'VE do not need
many ought to be able to eat for two
years with the aid of her own stores and
imports from Russia and the Danubian
countries Russia is on the side OF the
German digestion If not of the German
Army.
Germany must import food. Despite
her extraordinary efforts during the past
six years to improve her agricultural
output, Germany is less than IS per cent
self sufficient in this field. Until the war
began, she was importing edibles from
all parts of the world. The United States
shipped to her 1872 per cent of all her
food imports, chiefly wheat GO per
cent of all German wheat imports) and
corn (55 per cent of all German corn i'm
ports) Argentine supplied her with 10
per cent of her volume of food imports,
Brazil per cent, Canada from 2 to 3
Nor cont Chile I nor cent
May Be Hungry, but Won't Starve.
Formerly Germany relied on Austrian
wheat, Burma rice, South American
coffee, British fish, fruit from France,
Cuban tobacco and hundreds of thous-
ands Of pounds of other goods from
quarters of the world which no longer
exist so far as the German economy is
concerned.
From Denmark, her neighbor on the
northwest, Germany yet can obtain cattle
and swine and butter But commerce
with the states across the Baltic is made
precarious by mines and military opera
tons along the West Wall limit the
commerce with the Netherlands and
Belgium War has redesigned the Ger
man economic map until for the people
whose Fuehrer has acted on the policy
of "Drang Mach Osten." the West is no
more. In consequence, the Germans will
be hungry, even if they don't starve.
Germany can draw not only on Russia
but on Hungary, Rumania, Yugoslavia,
Bulgaria and, in small measure, Greece
and Turkey. Perhaps through Russia
she can in part retain her Asiatic COM
merce, which is an important factor in
the German diet.
Germany's principal problem is not
freedom of access to trade routes over
which foodstuffs can be imported, but
obtaining the foreign exchange to pay
for the imports. The country's practice
of conducting international commerce by
barter will suffer because of the height
ened difficulty which Germany will find
in producing the materials she can use
for export in barter deals. Even in her
recent peace-time history, Germany
found the financial aspects of foreign
commerce sore trial.
Four-Year Plan Interrupted.
Anyway, Germany's problem of feeding
the Germans begins at home. The
country went to war at the end of the
third year in her Four-Year Plan for
agriculture, which the National Socialist
administration in Berlin hoped would
make the Reich independent of foreign
food supplies. The independence was to
be achieved through four media:
l. Reclamation of new land for agri-
cultural purposes.
2. improvement in crop yields.
g. More efficient farming practices.
A. Directed change in dietary habits
which would shift consumption from one
product to another.
How far from her goal Germany found
herself when she had to restrict her
economic horizon because of war is made
clear by the report which Lloyd V. Steere,
American agricultural attache at the
Embassy in Berlin, sent to the Agricul-
ture Department on the German self
suficiency move. THE strenuous eff
nation and soil building, and particu-
larry, toward increased production Of
feedstuffs, will require years to become
fully effective" he wrote only two years
ago.
Fats Are Special Problem.
The three chief food problems in Ger
many on September l were fats wheat
and meat. These must be imported in