Food Supplies Available by Counties in Case of a National Emergency: A Civil Defense Study

Excerpts from the report Introduction: The Office of Civil Defense is assigned the responsibility for development of civil defense preparedness measures by Executive Order 10952. One important concern of civil defense is the availability of food supplies and the number of days during which a given population can be fed from stocks on hand in emergency situations. With an abundance of food on a national basis, the problem centers on the geographic distribution of the available supply in relation to population. Executive Order 10998 directs the U. S. Department of Agriculture to assess periodically food resources available from all sources in order to estimate availability under an emergency situation. Executive Order 10958 gives the Department of Agriculture responsibility for any food stockpiling. This report was prepared to meet the needs of the Office of Civil Defense and the Department of Agriculture and others concerned with civil defense. The data by counties. States, and regions are not precise. They are intended to show where available food supplies might be large or small in a national emergency. Even if different assumptions were made regarding the ability to transport food and minimum civilian food requirements in an emergency, the picture would remain relatively the same. Local food surpluses and deficits, in this case, might be greater or less than those shown here.