Food and Agriculture Organisation

THE report Ojf e special meeting on urgent food X problems fofimmoned by the Food and Agricultural Ors m ffcion of the United Nations at Washington during May 20–27, 1946, as a sequel to a resoy of the General Assembly on February 11, indues an appraisal of the world food situation during 1946–47, issued on May 14, 1946 (Washington: Food and Agricultural Organisation). This emphasizes that a critical world food shortage will continue at least until crops are harvested in 1947, even assuming average or somewhat better than average weather for the rest of 1946 and 1947. In spite of some prospective increases compared with 1945 in both Continental Europe and.the Far East, production in 1946 in continental Europe generally as well as rice production in the Far East will still be well below the pre-war level. World stocks of food have been seriously depleted to meet the current crisis, and the incidence of any widespread drought in the months immediately ahead might well be even more disastrous than the effects of the droughts which developed in 1945 and early in 1946.