DAIRY FARMERS' COSTS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIII, Issue 290, 7 December 1932, Page 6

DAIRY FARMERS ' COSTS.

LAND VALUES AND EFFICIENCY. (To the Editor.) In Monday's "Star" an example is given of dairy farmers' costs which is very incorrect and misleading. The cost of the- land, as quoted, £70 an acre for 00 acres, with a carrying capacity of 3u cows, with a very moderate yield per cow, means a capital expenditure for land per cow of £120. Now this price could never pay and was never warranted even with butter at 1/0. Therefore the loss quoted cannot be a guide in a general way. Had this land been capable of carrying one cow to the acre, with a yield of 3001b per cow, the- price of £70 an acre might have been warranted with butter at top prices, if no margin for contingencies was thought necessary. The efficient dairy farmer until lately has done very well, and even with butter at 9d can carry on and be in a better position than most people in New Zealand at the present time. No manufacturing business could succeed if the factory buildings and land cost three times, what they were worth for the purpose, for which they were intended to be used, and the manufacturer would get little sympathy for his blundering. E. A. BROWN. St. Stephen's Avenue.