Note 56 — Chapter III · THE POSSIBILITIES OF AGRICULTURE.

If we take the figures of imports and exports, which I also owe to the Belgian Rural Office, we find that the net imports of wheat, rye, and wheat mixed with rye (méteil) reached 3,011 million lb. in 1907 (3,374 million in 1910), which would give 429 lb. per capita for a population of 7,000,000 inhabitants. But if this amount be added to the local production of the same cereals, which reached the same year 2,426 million lb., we arrive at the figure of 776 lb. per head of population. But such a figure is much too high, because the annual per capita consumption of both the winter and the spring cereals is generally estimated to be 502 lb. There must be, therefore, either an error in the weight of the imports, which is improbable, or the figures of re-exported cereals are not complete. Let me add that in France the average annual consumption per capita of all cereals, including oats, has been in the course of twenty-nine years (1880-1908) 525 lb., which confirms the above-mentioned figure. And in France people eat as much bread as in Belgium.