AMBER WAVES OF GRAIN

by James Trager ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 5, 1973

Utilizing interviews with minor government bureaucrats from the Departments of Commerce and Agriculture, assorted newspaper accounts, and many referrals to one Morton Sosland, editor-publisher of Milling & Baking News, and his ""mysterious informant,"" Trager analyzes the 1972 U.S.-Russian wheat deals, alleging that the transactions are responsible for spiraling American food prices: "". . . all the shopping and cooking expertise in the world could not get around the fact that poultry prices reflected feed prices, and that feed prices reflected the grain and soybean purchases some Russians at the New York Hilton had made in the summer of 1972."" Another Nixonomoical caper? According to Trager, the President, when asked about the grain sales, said ""We were schnookered."" Despite the author's spate of statistics (many obfuscatory or irrelevant -- After a calf is weaned at 250 ro 500 pounds, 6 to 8 pounds of fodder and feed to yield are needed to produce 1 pound of live weight, roughly 10 pounds of fodder and feed to yield a pound of meat. A steer will normally be range-fed until it weighs about 650 pounds, though the figure may vary from 500 to more than 850. . .""), we are not convinced that the outrageous price of steak can be laid at the door of Russian cunning or that Nixon ever used the term schnookered.

Pub Date: Sept. 5, 1973

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Arthur Fields Books -- dist. by Dutton

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1973

Categories: NONFICTION