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253
INSPECTION OF FOOD AND SUPERVISION OF FOOD PREMISES
World population is rising rapidly. Notwithstanding the general
nature of this expansion, it is, unfortunately, greatest in those overpopulated
and under-developed areas such as Eastern Asia, India,
Pakistan, Central and South America, not to mention large areas
of Africa.
Such an explosive situation demands a corresponding increase
in food production from the fields, farms and oceans of the world
to satisfy these ever-increasing hungry mouths. Regrettably, it is
in the very regions mentioned above where the prospects of
additional food supplies are minimal and malnutrition, arising
particularly from protein deficiency, is rife. Countries lying in these
areas inevitably return high infant mortality rates, there is substantial
stunting of growth, mental retardment and a reduced
resistance to infection and disease in children and adults alike.
Within this context it must be stated that, although sustaining
the world's highest productivity rate per acre, this nation is not
self-supporting agriculturally despite the successful efforts of the
geneticists in creating more prolific breeds of sheep and pigs,
chickens with greater egg yields and hardier and quicker ripening
grains and root crops, etc. Indeed, of all food consumed in the
United Kingdom at present, approximately one half is imported,
a fact which not only emphasises our dependence upon the productivity
of other countries, but leaves us with the knowledge that
we are abstractors from the world's surplus food stores, perhaps at
the expense of poorer nations.
Responsibility for making good this world deficiency of food
rests with the more advanced and developed countries of Europe
and of North America and, more recently, Australasia. That surplus
food is being produced in these latter areas is undeniable but this
is being achieved rather more by extensive use of modern technological
methods such as improved mechanisation, increased
efficiency in agricultural practices, the introduction of artificial
fertilisers, better seed varieties and education, than by additions to
cultivated lands.
What, you may ask, is the connection between all this and food
inspection?
The intensive cultivation of crops and breeding of farm animals,
needed in today's world to sustain such a high level of food production,
depends largely upon the following :—
Herbicides and pesticides in plant protection.
Artificial fertilisers in lieu of traditional manures.