Excerpt from Report of the Secretary of Agriculture, 1946

Even in prewar years the American farm output was tremendous; besides providing an American standard of nutrition much higher than for most other countries, it supplied large quantities of food and fibers for export. Against this background, the wartime and postwar. Increase is surprisingly large. Moreover, the farmers accomplished it with almost no increase in the land used for crops and pasture, and with a working force depleted 10 percent. Farm production has in creased less during the last 5 years than industrial production; but industry has tremendously enlarged its plant capacity and its man power. Farmers have boosted their output chiefly by doing more work and better work individually and by using more science and more machinery. They are forging vital weapons for the winning of the peace.

Leaders in the Government, in the military services, and in civilian life have unanimously extolled Agriculture's wartime contribution to the cause of the United Nations. They have repeatedly declared that American food was a basic source of both economic and military power. As a weapon, it ranked with guns, planes, ships, and tanks; it was vital both in the production and in the utilization of all these weapons.

Food power, in short, was fire power. But now we must recognize that the American farm is an equally efficacious instrument of peace. It is restoring the strength and the production of the liberated coun tries, continuing to assist our allies in the late war, notably the United Kingdom, and simplifying occupation tasks in ex-enemy lands. With out this food, we might have to double or treble the occupying forces.

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