Agriculture and Food.

Part of the debate – in the House of Commons at on 28 July 1942.

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Photo of Mr David Quibell Mr David Quibell , Brigg

I think the Debate to-day is both timely and necessary. It is necessary from one particular point of view in regard to the distribution of our food. First of all, one must congratulate the Minister of Agriculture on achieving a great measure of success so far as the productive side of agriculture is concerned. I think that most of us will lament the fact, however, that after producing this food—I mention potatoes particularly now—it has been so badly handled that I am afraid when the Minister again urges some of the farmers to do their best to produce huge crops, he will find that the answer will be, in many cases, "Yes, we are quite willing to produce the crops of food, but to see it lie and rot on our farms and be completely useless is demoralising at least to a lot of people in different parts of the country who are short of food." Take the potato crop. I was among the farmers yesterday morning at my local market. Someone came to me who had 70 or 80 tons of potatoes in one particular" pie "completely useless for human food. So far as animal food is concerned, it should have been processed so that the best use could have been made of it. If the minds of Members will go back to February, 1939, we had a big fight about the policy of dealing with this crop at that time. The same adviser advised the Minister at that time, in order to deal with this abundant crop, to throw out all potatoes over 1 lb. in weight. The same kind of individual is advising the Minister how to deal with the crop this year. [An HON. MEMBER: "It is the same man."] Exactly the same.

Last year there was a slight gap between the old potatoes and the new ones coming on to the market. I think the Minister was perhaps wise in retaining some potatoes, but surely there were records at the Ministry as to the amount of potatoes on hand in this country and the amount likely to be consumed. One would have thought that the processing factories which some of us fought for some years to have erected to deal with surplus potatoes could have had the potatoes which were surplus to needs to manufacture into potato flour, glucose, soluble starches, etc., which would help the nation's war effort. I understand that no small amount of potatoes have gone to rot because that has not been done. I should like the Minister, in his reply, to give to this Committee some assurance. Some of us live in rural areas and have to go round to ask farmers, farm labourers and allotment holders to dig for victory and produce this essential foodstuff, and for the sight of unused foodstuff to meet one as one goes along roadsides in the potato-growing areas is demoralising, and gives the lie to every appeal we make to them to produce this food. I think practical suggestions should be made now. We are at war, and we are not trying to score party points. Practical suggestions to save food will save shipping.

There is another important food—carrots. I made a suggestion, I think a written one, to the Minister some time ago, as to how to deal with this food. I remember that some propaganda was directed against the Government and Parliament as to the way this particular crop had been dealt with. It was asserted that a large amount of this food was rotting in Covent Garden and other warehouses in different parts of the country. The primary cause of this has been, in my view, the fact that we have continued the senseless and wasteful practice of washing carrots in the field and then sending them to market. In the first place the carrot is grown on the cleanest land, because it is on light soil that carrots thrive the best. They are a clean crop. Why cannot they be sent straight to the market instead of being put into a tub and knocked about, bruised and damaged in the way that they have been? We have to put up with a lot of things in this war which we do not put up with in peace-time. Why not wash potatoes, why not wash turnips and swedes and the rest of the root crops? Carrots are spoiled by the process of washing them; they are damaged. In winter time—I hope the Minister will take note of this—they are washed, put into bags and become frozen in the bags. They are put into a warm warehouse, and they go bad, and damaging statements are made about merchants not marketing produce which is in the warehouses. I appeal to the Minister, and it is the Minister of Food in this case again, that so far as the Ministry is concerned its policy should be to wipe out the allowance made for washing carrots and have them sent in a sound natural condition to the markets of this country.

There is the question of price levels. I do not think that the Minister of Agriculture or any Member of this House could meet me or any other agricultural representative on any platform and defend the relative prices of, say, barley and wheat and carrots and potatoes. I consider, and every agriculturist does who knows his business, that carrots have been far too high in price. I do not know, but I should think that in several parts of the country the price paid for carrots is too high.