Roundup

U.S. citizens wondered why there was a meat shortage. The welkin rang with name-calling and charges of avarice and Government bungling. The few facts that could be dug out of the row were startling. Some of them:'

P: Hog production in the Midwest is 30 to 40% less than a year ago, despite a bumper crop of feed corn. The reason: the price of corn is fixed too high in relation to the fixed price of hogs.

P: The greatest herd of cattle on record (80 million head) roamed the vast, greening ranges. But many packers closed down near the end of last month, or worked only part time. The reason: OPA regulations make peak production unprofitable (subsidies to non-federally inspected packers are paid only for a monthly production equal to last year's).

P: Packers are buying the cheaper--and lighter weight--grass-fed cattle instead of corn-fed cattle. Reason: because the prices of corn and range cattle are high, fattened cattle are too expensive. Midwest feed-lot operators charged that this resulted in a senseless waste of meat. Cattle moving from the ranges to the feedlots for finishing on corn would gain 300 to 500 Ibs. of rich, marble-grained beef.

P: 15 to 20% of the meat in New York was moving through the lucrative black market, OPA admitted to a Senate committee. To committee members, the OPA estimate seemed low.

P: Stocks of meat are so low that Britain will be lucky to get 25 million pounds during the second quarter of 1945, little more than one-tenth of first-quarter shipments. No meat at all had been allocated for third-quarter Lend-Lease and relief shipments.

Those who stared long & hard at these facts were amazed--and angered. They asked, how could there be a shortage of meat? By last week most probers of the meat mess had reached the same conclusion: too-rigid restrictions and price controls on a sensitive market had knocked the whole meat system galley-west. Unless something was done to ease the restrictions, the meat shortage will become progressively worse.

Saga of the Pork Chop. Early in the war, when Government agencies asked the farmers to raise more hogs, they were promised a reasonable profit. To make sure they got it, OPA clamped a ceiling on the price of corn (averaging $1.07) and WFA put a floor price of $13.75 cwt. under the hog market.

The farmers joyfully went to work. In 1943, for a fat profit, they raised 122 million hogs--nearly double their prewar annual average production.

Then, to the farmers' consternation and anger, the agencies tried something else. To get corn into other markets, OPA boosted the ceiling price of corn. But instead of raising the floor under hogs, WFA dropped its support price to $12.50. The enraged farmers knew what to do about that. To save expensive feed, they dumped their hogs on the market.

The U.S. feasted on a temporary glut of pork. But this year the March slaughter of hogs was slightly less than 3.5 million v. 7 million last March. Last week in Chicago, hog receipts were less than 43,000 v. 129,000 for the similar week last year. Packers complained that this was the lowest in eight years. Too late, OPA last week timidly raised the support price to $13.

Beef Paradox. In the beef market, there was the same price trouble. Feed-lot operators cry that they are squeezed between the high prices they must pay for cattle off the ranges and the low ceiling prices allowed by OPA for corn-fed cattle.

Meanwhile the cattlemen argue that their prices for range cattle are not high enough to cover costs. Last week Richard Kleberg, co-owner of the vast (1.3 million-acre) King Ranch in Texas, told the Senate Food Investigation Committee that 3-c- more a pound for top-grade beef would result in plenty of beef for all within eight months.

But now the cattlemen were in no hurry to sell. As long as the ranges stay green, their pastured cattle will add weight, bring more in the markets next autumn.

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