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such that, in present circumstances, these two are unlikely ever to
coincide. In Asia for example, production per capita has fallen
by more than 5% since 1960 and the figure for Latin America is
probably worse. Clearly, for some years to come, the burden of
providing under-developed countries with food will be a continuing
liability on the U.S.A., advanced Western countries and Australasia.
In this connection it cannot be over-stressed that most of
the arable land in these countries is already under cultivation and
that surplus food is being produced only by the application of
modern scientific and technological methods which include improved
mechanisation, artificial fertilisers, pesticides and herbicides,
not to mention the use of antibiotics, coccidiostatics, tranquilisers,
anthelminthics and hormones in dairy farming. It would
be unrealistic not to assume that some of these substances persist
in the finished product and it is this probability that is of the utmost
importance to this country and, in particular, to our methods
of food inspection. That hazards arising from chemical residues
do not endanger the health of the community is one of a local
authority's major obligations and the task is becoming progressively
more difficult. Whilst we may maintain rigid control over
our own producers and their commodities we are constrained to
rely on other agencies for the quality and purity of imported foods
which, incidentally, form slightly more than 50% of this country's
total consumption despite the fact that the United Kingdom can
boast of having the highest food productivity rate per acre in the
world. It is a sobering thought that not only are we dependent
upon the productivity of other countries but that we are abstractors
from the world's surplus food stores perhaps at the expense of
poorer nations.
In this world-wide drive to increase protein production industrialisation,
in relation to stock-farming and poultry rearing, has
advanced the risks of a number of diseases known to be
genic to man such as flukes, worms and protozoal parasites not to
mention anthrax, tuberculosis, salmonella, Clostridium and
brucellosis infections. Those infections occasioning most trouble
to food inspectors are—salmonella bacteria which are present in
raw meat, poultry and eggs—Clostridium Welchii, a normal
inhabitant of the bowel of many animals including man and therefore
found in raw flesh—staphylococcus pyogenes, the causal agent
of boils, styes and whitlows which can so easily be transmitted to
foods in the course of their preparation. All these bacterial
poisonings can produce diarrhoea and vomiting after their various
incubation periods and, in certain circumstances, they can prove to
be lethal.
To these problems can be added those concerning the