Le Nord : revue internationale des Pays de Nord - 01.06.1938, Page 160

LE NORD
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in the requisite raw materials — a process which has in fact al-
ready begun — and if in addition they were to stop buying motor
cars from the assembling plants in Copenhagen, then our export
trade with the North would be very greatly reduced. On the
other hand, it would hardly pay our neighbours to do so, as that
would probably force us to transfer our purchases of the wood
and iron, etc. we need, to other countries.
Our unfavourable position in the inter-Northern trade is due
to natural conditions. The economy of Sweden, Norway, and
Finland has a broader and richer basis as regards natural resources
and sources of power than that of Denmark. Our country is not
only smaller than they, it is also more one-sided in its natural
equipment. It is the necessity of making up for the narrowness
of our raw-material basis that has forced us to undertake such an
intensive exploitation of the only considerable natural wealth we
have, viz. our agricultural soil. It must not be forgotten that an
intensive system of agriculture is necessarily closely bound up
with and dependent on a great foreign trade. Our yield per acre,
which is often the greatest in the world, is partly dependent on
imported fertilizers, and our animal husbandry could not be kept
up at its present level without imported feedstuffs. According to
the investigations of the Danish Statistical Department, 30 per
cent. of the nitrogen put into the Danish fields in 1927—28 con-
sisted of artificial fertilizers, practically all of which are im-
ported. The same applies to 57 per cent. of the phosphoric acid,
but only to 14 per cent. of the potash1)
Natural manure thus still plays a more important part in our
agricultural economy than artificial fertilizers. But on the other
hand, it must be borne in mind that natural manure is a by-
product of animal husbandry, and that the latter is only main-
tained at its present level with the assistance of imported feed-
stuffs, and by the use of a considerable percentage of the cereal
crops for cattle fodder, so that the domestic production of bread
corn must in consequence be supplemented to a very large extent
by foreign-grown corn. The productivity of our agriculture is
thus by no means due to our soil and climate alone: it is also
due to a very extensive import of raw materials. Our agricultural
x) Statistiske Efterretninger, 21. Aargang, No. 4, 1929, p. 32. Statistiske
Meddelelser, 4th series, vol. 84, No. 3: “Anvendelsen af Kunstgodning"
1928, Copenhagen 1930.