§ 22. Mr. PENNEFATHERasked the President of the Board of Agriculture if, in view of the possibility of a glut of potatoes in a few months, the Government will consider the best methods of conserving the quantities necessary for food for man and beast during the ensuing twelve months and also the scientific utilisation of any surplus in substitution for other products ordinarily plentiful but now difficult to obtain?
The PARLIAMENTARY SECRETARY to the MINISTRY of FOOD (Captain Bathurst)I have been asked to reply. A Committee has been appointed to advise the Ministry of Food on all questions relating to the marketing and distribution of the 1917 potato crop. The points raised by the question will be considered by this Committee in due course. There is at present no reason to suppose, allowing for the usual storage in clamps on the farms, that the crop will exceed the ordinary requirements of human consumption.
§ Mr. BILLINGIs the hon. Gentleman aware that within the last few weeks, in reply to a similar question which I asked, he suggested that it was foolish to anticipate the crop, and that we had no idea what the crop was going to be at all?
Captain BATHURSTThat is so. The conditions have so enormously changed owing to the extremely favourable weather during the last three weeks that it would not be inconsistent if any answer varied somewhat.