IMPPROVING QUALITY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 116, 19 May 1933, Page 6

IMPPROVING QUALITY.

Our cheese has been held back so long by unnecessary handicaps that there should be immediate and general endorsement of the action taken by the Government to ensure more careful control in the dairy industry. In no other country does cheese bulk so largely in the total value of exports, yet for years past this Dominion has been 1 content with methods which have brought their own penalty in low prices abroad. Compared with Swiss and Canadian cheese on the London market, our product year after year has been at a heavy discount, due entirely to our shortsighted policy of sacrificing quality to quantity of production. Not until the ruinous prices of the "depression exposed the folly of this policy was any adequate attention given to the problems of the industry, and even then many months were allowed to pass before those concerned in the manufacture of cheese were ready to act. Complete agreement was reached finally at a conference in March of all sections of the dairying industry, and the regulations now gazetted are the result. One ' of the most important changes proposed is in more thorough grading of milk for cheesemaking and payment according to quality. Grading has a double aim to serve, and is concerned, in the first instance, with purity. In New Zealand there is much room for improvement by more care at the source of supply, and farmers who market their milk free from taint or contamination of any kind should be rewarded for their pains, while others should be given some incentive to improve their standard. The other purpose of grading touches the more controversial question of breeds. There has been a tendency towards the production of high-testing milk, and a difference of opinion exists as to whether this is in the best interests of the cheese industry. In the Auckland province, where butter is a much more important product, there must be a balancing of advantages between the two branches of dairying, and there is not sufficient evidence yet to indicate whether the interests of .butter have been given too much weight. The industry as a whole is affected by the new regulation restricting the transfer of supply from one factory to another duiing a production season. Where several companies operate in the same area, an excess of competition for supplies tends to a lowering of standards, besides causing needless expense through overlapping in the collection of milk or cream, and suppliers' organisations, therefore, should welcome this restriction, as it puts a needful check upon those few who are tempted to profit by any slight immediate gain. Without such a provision there would i be considerable difficulty in enforcing better j control; with it the record of every supplier | for a whole season can be easily followed. The regulations are a radical departure: from old methods in New Zealand dairying, i and particularly in cheese production. How far-reaching the consequences may i be remains to be seen, but much will depend ; upon the spirit of co-operation in which the j changes are applied. j