Amerikai Magyar Szó, 1976. július-december (30. évfolyam, 27-51. szám)

1976-07-01 / 27. szám

Thursday, July 1. 1976.

it can survive in places where the annual average precipitation is only two inches. The oil made from jojoba seeds can do all of the things that sperm oil can, and even do some things better,' and jojoba oil does not have the same fishy odor that sperm oil does. Jojoba grows in the wild only in Arizona and California, and in parts of Mexico, but is has been grown in other countries from seeds exported from the USA. Unlike coal, gas and petroleum, jojoba is an almost infinitely renewable source of energy, from the ground so it is referred to as “liquefied solar energy”. In this country, jojoba research and development has gotten a very small amount of government funding, but in Mexico, jojoba is a very big thing and the government is solidly behind it.

Poland is not directly concerned with jojoba production, since it does not have the proper climate for it, but Poland’s agriculture has other problems. In a coimtry that has made amazing strides in industry since it started to rebuild after World War IT. (the production of Polsky Fiat autos and Singer sewing machines are standouts in this respect), Poland’s farming is quite backward, in some respects, especially when it comes to mechanization. Steps are being taken to alleviate this negative condition; Poland’s expanding agricultural machinery industry employs 100.000 workers and has 34 major factories, and even exports farm machinery. For instance, there are 50.000 Polish-made Ursus farmtractors in India and 20.000 of those machines in Yugoslavia. But in 1975 Poland had to import twice as much (in terms of monetary value) farm machinery as it exported, because there are many types that are as yet not made there. Smaller farm tractors (up to 75 horse power) are being made in Poland under a franchise bought from Massey-Ferguson-Perldns, Massey’s British branch, and larger tractors are imported from the USSR and Czechoslovakia. As all these big changes are being made, one statistic shows how far Poland still has to go in this field. While the more advanced countries of Europe long ago reached the point where they had more farm tractors than farm draught horses, Poland still has several times as many draught horses as farm tractors.

Switching from horses and tractors to another branch of agriculture, we look at some cows. Israeli Friesian cows are the highest volume milk producers in the world, topping even the USA’s Holstein-Frie- sians (just by coincidence, the genetic base of the Israeli Friesians is mostly USA Holstein, with some Canadian Holstein and Dutch Friesian mixed in), Where they have been exported by other countries, Israeli Friesians continue to do well in milk production. At the same time, Israel is a rather prominent exporter of home-manufactured armaments (light arms, for the most part), while it imports heavy military hardware from the USA. The cause of world peace could be served much better (and so could the dairy world), if Israel would export those fine cows, and not the machines of death, and the same can be said for Israel’s ally, the USA.

While Hungarian dairy cows’ milk production is still far from the Israeli or USA level, big improvements have been made in Hungarian dairy farming in the 1970’s, and a big reason for the progress was the importation of more efficient and productive four-legged milk-producing machines from Holland (Dutch Friesians) and Holstein-Friesians from Canada and the USA. Still, the overwhelming majority of Hungarian dairy cows are, unfortunately, of the Hungarian Tarka breed, a native breed of the spotted brown and white Simmental type. The Tarka

has been the dominant Hungarian cattle breed, for both beef and milk, since the early part of this cen. tury, and it is still adequate for the production of good beef-animals, but is by present day standards and for Hungarian needs, an obsolete breed, when it comes to milk production. Tarka cows just cannot produce the volumes of milk that modern breeds of dairy cows do; the imported North American Holsteins average at least double the milk production . of the Tarka. The changeover in breeds has to be made, and it is, however gradually, being made. Besides importing and breeding Holsteins to replace the Tarka, Hungarian cattle-breeders have evolved a new Hungarian dairy cattle breed; it is called the Hungaro-Friesian, and it is formed thru cross-breeding; 50 % Holstein, 25 % Hungarian Tarka and 25 % Jersey.

Alliances between and among nations are formed, supposedly to help the member nations. Sometimes that objective is reached, and sometimes it is not, and in any case, the member nations tend to be exclusionary in relation to non-member nations. This had to happen, in the case of the European Economic Community, or Common Market, which was formed to eliminate trade barriers among certain Western European countries, and thus help their economies via the trade stimulus. While this may help the EEC member-nations, the ban on importation of beef from outside the EEC cut into Hungary’s flourishing beef export markets in countries like West Germany and Italy. As a result of that ban, Hungary had to hunt for some more stable trading partners, for its beef exports. And Finland and New Zealand used to ship a lot of butter to England, which is a big food importer, but EEC regulations have reduced those butter shipments to a fraction of what they used to be. Because of this action New Zealand and Finland have modified their dairy products program and are seeking new costumers for these products of the cow. And seek they must, for dairy products are the leading exports of these two countries.

Here is another problem that is related to some EEC .countries. Socialist countries, in general, have full employment as one of their major goals, and most socialist countries, whatever their lacks may be in other respects, have achieved that goal. Hut Yugoslavia is a socialist country that does not have full employment. For this there has been, for some years, a safety valve, in the employment of several hundred thousand Yugoslav workers in the more prosperous countries of Western Europe, when those nations were enjoying relatively full employment. But what will Yugoslavia do now, with large- scale unemployment developing in those countries where the Yugoslav “guest workers” have been employed, when these workers are laid off (the guest workers are the first to be discharged, when things get slow), and sent back home?

Romania, Yugoslavia’s neighbor, like Poland, has more draught horses than farm tractors, and tho it does not have to contend with the problems of having to find employment for large numbers of workers returning from abroad,. it has a strange situation, in regard to gasoline pricing. Romania is the second largest oil producer on the continent of Europe, and along with Russia, is the only European nation to be self-sufficient in petroleum (at least, for the present). In contrast to this, Hungary has some oil in the ground, but this only provides for about one-fifth of Hungary’s needs, so the rest of the oil must be imported. Despite this, gasoline prices are higher in Romania than in Hungary.

AMERIKAI MAGYAR SZO —

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Yes, there are some very strange things that defy logical explanation, in the oil world, and that could apply to Egypt and Canada, as well. In the case of Egypt, its Abu Rndeis oilfields in the Sinai Desert had been captured by Israel during the 1967 war, and were held and used by Israel for 8 and a half years. Then Israel returned Abu Rudeis to Egypt, and this big source of oil enabled Egypt to be an oil exporter. As soon as that happened, the Egyptian government raised the price of domestic gasoline from 64 cents to 75 cents per gallon.

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Canada’s position in regard to automobiles and the so-called oil shortage is hard to decipher. Our northern neighbor is supposed to be an oil exporting nation, while the USA is a net importer of oil. And while the big price increases of American gasoline and motor oil are blamed on the increasing amount of expensive oil imported into the USA, Canadian gasoline prices continue to be just as high, if not higher than USA prices. *n this country, one sees an increasing proportion of compact cars on the roads (in order to conserve on gas mileage); it is not that way in Canada. This writer’s observations in Canada, as well as reports received from there, indicate that Canadians prefer sticking to standard size cars and large ones, with greatly increased sales of Cadillacs and Lincolns.

As the British pound struggles to stay over the $ 1.70 level these days, it is noteworthy to recall that not so many years ago, a “pound” in American slang parlance meant five dollars, because the pound held that level for so many years The U.S. dollar is in pretty good shape on the world money markets now (even tho continuing inflation beats it down at home), but as recently as three years ago, when the dollar was having some serious negative fluctuations, American travelers going abroad were advised to put their money into English pounds, which were then considered by some to be more stable than' the dollar.

Despite all of the cuckoo things enumerated and described above there is hope for the future of the world in this bicentennial year. Perhaps this hope is best expressed in the philosophy of a friend of mine, Louis Grave, a retired stone mason in a small village in Central France, who was an active member of the French Resistance to Nazi occupation in World War II. and who survived the horror of the Nazi slave labor camps. Louis puts it this way:

“Things are better now than they were a generation or even a decade ago, gut we will not enjoy that better life if there is not a lasting peace. One atomic holocaust could blow it all away, for everyone. Future bloodbaths can be avoided, but only when government leaders come to realize that military muscle will not solve the world’s problems. The world can have a good future if people of conscience are at the helm of governments.”

The state farms have greatly expanded their cattle- breeding in recent years.