International: Scorched Earth

Although few Americans are aware of it, the world has just suffered a major crop disaster. But United Nations officials who are figuring how to feed Europe’s starving millions and how to stretch the world’s limited supply of shipping know it well. The Southern Hemisphere has had a five-months’ drought and its two chief food-producing countries, Argentina and Australia, are hardest hit:

Argentina. This year’s estimated wheat crop of 156.000,000 bu. is about 60% of last year’s; the 76,000,000-bu. corn crop is 22%. Other grains are hard hit, but because of considerable carry-overs Argentina will probably need no imports, although her exports will be drastically reduced. The most serious blow to the world is the loss of almost half of Argentina’s linseed oil production.

South Africa. Always a food importer, South Africa, because of drought at home, will need to import more than usual—just how much is not yet known—and ships to carry the food will have to be found.

Australia. The two most populous of the chief grain-producing states, Victoria and New South Wales, have had a drought, say oldtimers, more serious than the disastrous “dry of 1902.” The Sydney Morning Herald reported: “Drought stretches almost to Sydney’s back door. . . . Spring Creek stopped running for the first time since the white man came. Along the Fish and Campbell Rivers, which normally are fed by a 30-inch annual rainfall, vegetable growers are scooping holes in the dry beds of streams to get a little water. . . .

“To drive into this country in a dust storm from Balranald to Wentworth is like driving in a lost world. The dust-laden air plays eerie tricks with light. The sky appears leaden, like a snowy sky in Europe, or is crossed by great bands of black, red, and grey. Moist surfaces—such as sweat patches on a horse or the wet concrete of a swimming pool at an irrigation settlement—are a weird glowing purplish color. The sun is entirely obscured, or shows like a wan full moon. Dead trees, a tragic number, loom through the hot murk in a variety of fantastic shapes as though they died in agony. . . . Where the dust clears a little, a few dead sheep may be seen. But not many; the drifting sand has buried an uncounted number where they fell. . . .” Results:

¶ Wheat crop estimates are 50 million bushels (1933-42 average, 156 million).

¶ Wool production is off 20%; mutton and lamb supplies, 10%.

¶ Plans are being laid to get shipping to transfer wheat from Western and South Australia to Victoria and New South Wales.

The U.S. and Canada will have to supply Australia’s, as well as Argentina’s, wheat customers, including Britain and the Middle East. At present the U.S. and Canada have the wheat but not the shipping. New Zealand. While the gods laughed, New Zealand got too much of what Australia lacked. Hopes for a bumper wheat crop this season were dashed by floods which washed out fields.