Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 279, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 11 December 1917 — WHAT CAUSED FOOD SHORTAGE? [ARTICLE]

WHAT CAUSED FOOD SHORTAGE?

Herbert Hoover, U. S. Food Administrator, says there have been two prlnlclpal reasons to account for the present food shortage. First, the “unkindness of nature,” Including the late spring, droughts, hurricanes, poor conditions of rainfall, unexpected frosts and periods Of intense heat in sections throughout the world. Second, he gives “reduced productivity of the soil in Europe.” Concerning this, Hoover says: “This condition has been brought about by bad management, unskilled work, and lack of fertilizers; and these in turn can be explained by the withdrawal of men from fjirm and field to army and factory, arid the employment on the soil of overworked women, unskilled old men and listless prisoners. Furthermore the vicious submarine has sunk boat after boat filled with nitrates and fertilizers, conspiring to augment the pauperization of the earth, so that reduction in soli productivity was inevitable.”