TEXT E The long years of food
shortage in this country have suddenly given way to apparent abundance. Stores
and shops are choked with food. Rationing is virtually suspended, and overseas
suppliers have been asked to hold back deliveries. Yet, instead of joy, there is
wide-spread uneasiness and confusion. Why do food prices keep on rising, when
there seems to be so much more food about Is the abundance only temporary, or
has it come to stay Does it mean that we need to think less now about producing
more food at home No one knows what to expect. The recent
growth of export surpluses on the world food market has certainly been
unexpectedly great, partly because a strange sequence of two successful grain
harvests in North America is now being followed by a third. Most of Britain’s
overseas suppliers of meat, too, are offering more this year and home production
has also risen. But the effect of all this on the food situation
in this country has been made worse by a simultaneous rise in food prices, due
chiefly to the gradual cutting down of government support for food. The shops
are. over stocked with food not only because there is more food available, but
also because people, frightened by high prices, are buying less of it.
Moreover, the rise in domestic prices has come at a time when world prices
have begun to fall, with the result that imported food, with the exception of
grain, is often cheaper than the home-produced variety. And now grain prices,
too, are falling. Consumers are beginning to ask why they should not be enabled
to benefit from this trend. The significance of these
developments is not lost on farmers. The older generation have seen it all
happen before. Despite the present price and market guarantees, farmers fear
they are about to be squeezed between cheap food imports and a shrinking home
market. Present production is running at 51 per cent above pre-war levels, and
the government has called for an expansion to 60 per cent by 1956; but repeated
Ministerial advice is carrying little weight and the expansion program is not
working very well. Why didn’t the government’s expansion program work very well
A．Because the farmers were uncertain about the financial support the government guaranteed. B．Because the tanners were uncertain about the benefits of expanding production. C．Because the farmers were uncertain whether foreign markets could be found for their produce. D．Because the older generation of farmers were strongly against the program.