Food Conditions

The U. S. Department of Agriculture reported that its foreign representatives had just "returned from a nation-wide survey of German conditions." This is what they said on the food situation:

That the peasants will not produce more food than they can use or sell, and there is not likely to be any great increase in crop production until conditions of distribution have improved.

That imports have been insufficient to bring the total food supply up to the estimated requirements of the population as a whole.

That the food surplus areas of Germany are in the Eastern provinces.

That transportation facilities have been inadequate and rates relatively high so that it has been easier to import foreign grain through Hamburg or Bremen, or by way of the Rhine from Rotterdam, than to bring domestic grain by rail from one end of Germany to the other.

That the peasant is reported as not inclined to relieve the distress in the cities, preferring instead to feed his livestock on grain, in place of the oil cake and other stock feeds formerly obtained from abroad.

That there is little indication that the grain crops of 1924 will be larger than those of 1923.