The long years of food shortage in this country have suddenly given way to apparent abundance. Stores and shops are choked with food. Rationing (定量供应) is virtually suspended, and overseas suppliers have been asked to hold back deliveries. Yet, instead of joy, there is wide-spread uneasiness and confusion. Why do food prices keep on rising, when there seems to be so much more food about? Is the abundance only temporary, or has it come to stay? Does it mean that we need to think less now about producing more food at home? No one knows what to expect.
The recent growth of export surpluses on the world food market has certainly been unexpectedly great, partly because a strange sequence of two successful grain harvests in North America is now being followed by a third. Most of Britain's overseas suppliers of meat, too, are offering more this year and home production has also risen.
But the effect of all this on the food situation in this country has been made worse by a simultaneous rise in food prices, due chiefly to the gradual cutting down of government support for food. The shops are overstocked with food not only because there is more food available, but also because people, frightened by high prices, are buying less of it.
Moreover, the rise in domestic prices has come at a time when world prices have begun to fall, with the result that imported food, with the exception of grain, is often cheaper than the home-produced variety. And now grain prices, too, are falling. Consumers are beginning to ask why they should not be enabled to benefit from this trend.
The significance of these developments is not lost on farmers. The older generation have seen it all happen before. Despite the present price and market guarantees, farmers fear they are about to be squeezed between cheap food imports and a shrinking home market. Present production is running at 51 per cent above pre-war levels, and the government has called for an expansion to 60 per cent by 1956; but repeated Ministerial advice is carrying little weight and the expansion programme is not working very well.
26. Why is there “wide-spread uneasiness and confusion” about the food situation in Britain?
A) The abundant food supply is not expected to last.
B) Despite the abundance, food prices keep rising.
C) Britain is importing less food.
D) Britain will cut back on its production of food.
27. The main reason for the rise in food prices is that .
A) people are buying less food
B) imported food is driving prices higher
C) domestic food production has decreased
D) the government is providing less support for agriculture
28. Why didn't the government's expansion programme work very well?
A) Because the farmers were uncertain about the financial support the government guaranteed.
B) Because the farmers were uncertain about the benefits of expanding production.
C) Because the farmers were uncertain whether foreign markets could be found for their produce.
D) Because the older generation of farmers were strongly against the programme.
29. The decrease in world food prices was a result of .
A) a sharp fall in the purchasing power of the consumers
B) a sharp fall in the cost of food production
C) the overproduction of food in the food-importing countries
D) the overproduction on the part of the main food-exporting countries
30. What did the future look like for Britain's food production at the time this article was written?
A) It looks depressing despite government guarantees .
B) An expansion of food production was at hand.
C) British food producers would receive more government financial support.
D) The fall in world food prices would benefit British food producers.
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