The general opinion of the people in Germany is that the country cannot be starved out, and this opinion is asserted with a great deal of patriotic fervor, particularly by newspaper editors. The leading scientists of the country, moreover, have taken up the question in a thoroughgoing way and investigated it in all its bearings. A little book ("Die Deutsche Volksernährung und der Englische Aushungerungsplan") has just been issued, giving the conclusions of sixteen specialists in various fields, which will be briefly summarized here. Economists, statisticians, physiologists, agricultural chemists, food specialists, and geologists have all taken part in producing a composite view of the whole subject; it is not a book of special contributions by individual specialists, but is written in one cast and represents the compared and boiled-down conclusions of the sixteen scholars.
The authors by no means regard the problem of feeding Germany without foreign assistance as an easy and simple one; on the contrary, they say it is a serious one, and calls for the supreme effort of the authorities and of every individual German; and only by energetic, systematic, and continued efforts of Government and people can they prevent a shortage of food from negativing the success of German arms. Yet they feel bound to grapple the problem as one calling for solution by the German people alone, for very small imports of food products can be expected from the neutral countries of Europe, and none at all from the United States and other oversea countries, and the small quantities that do come in will hardly be more than enough to make good the drain upon Germany's own available stocks in helping to feed the people of Belgium and Poland.
The simplest statistical elements of the problem are the following: Germany, with a population of 68,000,000, was consuming food products, when the war broke out, equivalent to an aggregate of 90,420 billion calories, including 2,307,000 tons of albumen; whereas the amount now available, under unchanged methods of living and feeding, is equal to only 67,870 billion calories, with 1,543,000 tons of albumen. Thus, there will be an apparent deficit of 22,590 billion calories and 764,000 tons of albumen. On the other hand, the authors hold that the minimum physiological requirements are only 56,750 billion calories, containing 1,605,000 tons of albumen, which would give a large surplus of calories and a small deficit of albumen, but they make certain recommendations which, if carried into effect, would bring the available supply up to 81,250 billion calories and 2,023,000 tons of albumen.
Germany raises (average for 1912-13) about 4,500,000 tons of wheat and imports nearly 2,000,000 tons, (about 73,000,000 bushels.) On the other hand, it exports about 530,000 tons net of the 11,900,000 tons of rye produced. It imports nearly 3,000,000 tons of low-grade barley and about 1,000,000 of maize, both chiefly for feeding stock. Its net imports of grain and legumes are 6,270,000 tons. Of its fruit consumption, about 30 per cent. has been imported. While Germany has been producing nearly its entire meat supply at home, this has been accomplished only by the very extensive use of foreign feedstuffs. The authors of this work estimate that the imports of meats and animals, together with the product from domestic animals fed with foreign feedstuffs, amount to not less than 33 per cent. of the total consumption. They also hold that about 58 per cent. of the milk consumed in Germany represents imports and the product of cows fed with foreign feedstuffs. Nearly 40 per cent. of the egg consumption was hitherto imported. The consumption of fish has averaged 576,000 tons, of which not less than 62 per cent. was imported; and the home fisheries are now confined, besides the internal waters, almost wholly to the Baltic Sea—which means the loss of the catch of 142,000 tons hitherto taken from the North Sea. Even the German's favorite beverage, beer, contains 13 per cent. of imported ingredients.
The authors assume, as already intimated, that nearly all of these imports will be lost to Germany during the full duration of the war, and they take up, under this big limitation, the problem of showing how Germany can live upon its own resources and go on fighting till it wins. They undertake to show how savings can be made in the use of the supplies on hand, and also how production can be increased or changed so as to keep the country supplied with food products.
In the first place, they insist that the prohibition of the export of grain be made absolute; in other words, the small exception made in favor of Switzerland, which has usually obtained most of its grain from Germany, must be canceled. Savings in the present supplies of grain and feedstuffs must be made by a considerable reduction in the live stock, inasmuch as the grain, potatoes, turnips, and other stuffs fed to animals will support a great many more men if consumed directly by them. From the stock of cattle the poorer milkers must be eliminated and converted into beef, 10 per cent. of the milch cows to be thus disposed, of. Then swine, in particular, must be slaughtered down to 65 per cent. of the present number, they being great consumers of material suitable for human food. In Germany much skim milk and buttermilk is fed to swine; the authors demand that this partial waste of very valuable albumens be stopped. The potato crop—of which Germany produces above 50,000,000 tons a year, or much more than any other land—must be more extensively drawn upon than hitherto for feeding the people. To this end potato-drying establishments must be multiplied; these will turn out a rough product for feeding animals, and a better sort for table use. It may be added here that the Prussian Government last Autumn decided to give financial aid to agricultural organizations for erecting drying plants; also, that the Imperial Government has decreed that potatoes up to a maximum of 30 per cent. may be used by the bakers in making bread—a measure which will undoubtedly make the grain supply suffice till the 1915 crop is harvested. It is further recommended that more vegetables be preserved, whether directly in cold storage or by canning or pickling. Moreover, the industrial use of fats suitable for human food (as in making soaps, lubricating oils, &c.) must be stopped, and people must eat less meat, less butter, and more vegetables. Grain must not be converted into starch. People must burn coke rather than coal, for the coking process yields the valuable by-product of sulphate of ammonia, one of the most valuable of fertilizers, and greatly needed by German farmers now owing to the stoppage of imports of nitrate of soda from Chile.
In considering how the German people may keep up their production of food, the authors find that various factors will work against such a result. In the first place, there is a shortage of labor, nearly all the able-bodied young and middle-aged men in the farming districts being in the war. There is also a scarcity of horses, some 500,000 head having already been requisitioned for army use, and the imports of about 140,000 head (chiefly from Russia) have almost wholly ceased. The people must therefore resort more extensively to the use of motor plows, and the State Governments must give financial assistance to insure this wherever necessary; and such plows on hand must be kept more steadily in use through company ownership or rental. It may be remarked here, again, that the Prussian Government is also assisting agricultural organizations to buy motor plows. The supply of fertilizers has also been cut down by the war. Nitrate has just been mentioned. The authors recommend that the Government solve this problem by having many of the existing electrical plants turn partly to recovering nitrogen from the atmosphere. This, they say, could be done without reducing the present production of electricity for ordinary purposes, since only 19 per cent. of the effective capacity of the 2,000,000 horse power producible by the electrical plants of Germany is actually used. The supply of phosphoric fertilizers is also endangered through the stoppage of imports of phosphate rock (nearly 1,000,000 tons a year) as well as the material from which to make sulphuric acid; also, through the reduction in the production of the iron furnaces of the country, from the slag of which over 2,000,000 tons of so-called Thomas phosphate flour was produced, will involve a big reduction in the make of that valuable fertilizer. Thus, there is a lack of horses, of fertilizers, and of the guiding hand of man. This last, however, can be partly supplied by utilizing for farm work such of the prisoners of war as come from the farm. As Germany now holds considerably more than 600,000 prisoners, it can draw many farm laborers from among them. Prisoners are already used in large numbers in recovering moorland for agricultural purposes.
This latter remark suggests one of the recommendations of the authors for increasing agricultural production—the increased recovery of moorlands. They show that Germany has at least 52,000 square miles (more than 33,000,000 acres) of moors convertible into good arable land, which, with proper fertilizing, can be made at once richly productive; they yield particularly large crops of grain and potatoes. Moreover, the State Governments must undertake the division of large landed estates among small proprietors wherever possible—and this is more possible just now than ever, owing to the fact that many large owners have been killed in battle. The reason for such a division is that the small holder gets more out of the acre than the large proprietor.
As Germany makes a large surplus of sugar, the authors advise that the area planted in beets be reduced and the land thus liberated be planted in grain, potatoes, and turnips; as a matter of fact, it is reported that the Government is now considering the question of reducing the beetroot acreage by one-fourth. The authors also recommend that sugar be used to some extent in feeding stock, sweeting low-grade hay and roots with it to make them more palatable and nutritious. It is also regarded as profitable to leave 20 per cent. of sugar in the beets, so as to secure a more valuable feed product in the remnants. Still another agricultural change is to increase the crops of beans, peas, and lentils—vegetables which contain when dried as much nutrition as meat. Germany will need to increase its home production of these crops to replace the 300,000 tons of them hitherto imported.
Such are the principal points covered by these experts. Their conclusion is that, if their recommendations be carried out fully, and various economies be practiced—they could not be touched on in the limits of this article—Germany can manage to feed its people. But they insist, in their earnest, concluding words, that this can only be done by carrying out thoroughly all the methods of producing and saving food products advised by them. It is a serious problem, indeed, but one which, all Germany is convinced, can and will be solved.