On This Day, 21 December 1916

Evening Despatch

Thursday 21 December 1916

BIRMINGHAM TO LEAD THE WAY.

The Urgent Need for Food Production.

LAND AND LABOUR WANTED.

That this meeting, realising the urgent necessity for increasing the production of food in the neighbourhood, undertakes to assist the Council to the best of its ability by making known the need for land suitable for cultivation and for the labour necessary to produce food therefrom.

This resolution was passed at a meeting convened by the Lord Mayor of Birmingham (Alderman Neville Chamberlain) at the Council House last night, to consider a recent order of the Board of Agriculture under the Defence of the Realm Act, by which powers have been delegated to local authorities for acquiring land which is not being fully used.
“I am quite certain that this power would not have been given,” said the Lord Mayor, “if the Board of Agriculture and the Cabinet generally were not firmly convinced that the situation with regard to the production of food was now really serious. I think one may clearly say that they foresee a very serious shortage, one which might have, at any rate, a serious effect upon our ability to continue the war with efficiency if it were not met with some timely measure at once.”

SUITABLE PLOTS.

The powers were to bring together the people who had the time to cultivate the land and the land which was not now cultivated with the utmost efficiency in the neighbourhood of their homes.
In addition to the appeal to make known to the Council the existence of plots of land suitable for cultivation, the Lord Mayor appealed to nurserymen and private owners employing gardeners to assist by allowing their men to give instructions.
There was a great opportunity, he felt, for Birmingham to give a lead to other towns. We had an immense population and there was an enormous amount of land which could be cultivated.

PRACTICAL ADVICE.

Mr. Impey said there was a great need of a practical farming and gardening expert in Birmingham, and he trusted the Council would before long decided on such an appointment.
Councillor Simpson urged taking the work up in a collective sense to ensure its success. Then the people would be able to get food at the lowest possible cost.
Councillor Hallas hoped the Board of the Agriculture would take steps to guarantee to the farmers reasonable prices for potatoes and wheat, and we could have what we wanted. Labour could be obtained and we could feed ourselves, but only by adopting very much more drastic and far-reaching methods than proposed by that of the Order.