White House Press Release, Address of Secretary of Agriculture Clinton P. Anderson

#6.03 HOLD FOR RELEASE HOLD FOR RELEASE HOLD FOR RELEASE April 19, 1946 CAUTION: The following radio address by Secretary of Agriculture Clinton P. Anderson, to be delivered from the White House, MUST BE HELD IN CONFIDENCE until released. NOTE: Release to editions of newspapers appearing on the streets NOT EARLIER THAN 7:00 P.M., E.S.T., today, Friday, April 19, 1946. The same release applies to radio commentators and news broadcasters. CHARLES G. ROSS Secretary to the President For all of us there is deep significance in the messages we have heard from President Truman, Former President Hoover, and Director General LaGuardia. The desperate world food shortage and its consequences human misery, death, and danger to the world's future -- point unmistakably to the need for more effective action now. The United States has already undertaken several lines of emergency action to increase and speed up our shipments of food to the needy countries. We must continue all of them -- both the voluntary conservation efforts and the Government regulations not only continue them but make them increasingly effective, NARA But we must do still more. The United States Government today, acting after consultation with the Governments of Canada and the United Kingdom, has inaugurated six additions to the famine emergency program of this country. The Governments of Canada and the United Kingdom have indicated that they will work with us toward two common objectives: to increase the total ship- ments of grain promptly and to give priority to the areas most urgently in need of special aid. Let me outline the actions being taken in the United States. First, the Government is requiring millers to reduce the production of wheat flour for use in this country to 75 percent of the amount they distributed for that purpose in the corresponding months last year. Second, food manufacturers are required to limit their use of wheat to 75 percent of the amounts they used in the same months of 1945. Third, millers and food manufacturers having inventories of wheat in excess of an amount necessary to operate 21 days will not be permitted to grind unless they make this excess wheat or flour equivalent available to the government. These limitations are not a substitute for voluntary conservation efforts. On the contrary, vigorous self-rationing will continue to be necessary. Our objective still is to reduce our food use of wheat by 40 percent, as the Fanine Emergency Committee has recommended. The new regulations will help us reach that objective, but greater self-denial is needed as well. The fourth measure, a bonus of 30 cents a bushel on wheat delivered under the certificate plan before May 25, is to encourage immediate delivery of increased amounts of wheat. Our shipments abroad are lagging badly in April -- and we are determined to meet our goals. Now the fifth action. The Department of Agriculture is inaugurating a corn purchase program in order to divert more corn from use as livestock feed to use as human food. In buying for this purpose, the Department will pay producers, until further notice, a bonus of 30 cents a bushel above the market price on the date of delivery. We expect two results from this action. We expect to make more grain available for food purposes immediately. At the same time, the bonus will encourage the farmer in the surplus corn-producing states to market more corn and stop feeding hogs to heavy weights, (OVER)