RICE INDUSTRY.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVI, Issue 201, 26 August 1935, Page 9

RICE INDUSTRY.

IN AUSTRALIA. GROWTH IN SEVEN YEARS. MACHINERY LARGELY TTSEDv Seven years ago a New South Wales fruit canning research worker noticed that California was growing rice in soil similar to that existing in the Murrumbidgee reclamation area. He took back with him two bags of grain, and from that has grown an industry that now earns upwards of £400,000 a year. The story of the romantic growth of the industry was told on Saturday by Mr. J. 0. Doyle, chairman of the Rice Marketing Board for the State of New South Wales, who is on his way to California to study the latest methods of rice culture. With him on the same inquiry is Mr. W. H. Poggendorff, assistant plant breeder for the New South Wales Agricultural Department. Assistance from the State Government, and the fact that the Ottawa agreement gave their rice preference in the market of the United Kingdom have been the factors enabling them to place the industry on a firm foundation. It is now, in Mr. Doyle's words, "quite a decent little business." It support* about 310 farmers, who work on a quota system, and the annual harvest is from 35,000 to 40,000 tons. They hold about 300 acres each on perpetual lease from the Government, and crop about 80 acres of rice. The planting and harvesting is done almost wholly by machinery. The rice is planted in October and harvested in late May. Except for the ripening period, the ground is kept under water from the irrigation scheme, and this service costs each farmer about £150 a year. The Department of Agriculture has established a special rice research station in the area, and already Mr. Poggendorff has produced several new varieties of seed. The paddy rice is of good quality and commands a fair market in the United Kingdom, Canada and New Zealand. For a time, said Mr. Doyle, the industry was nearly killed by weeds. However, the farmers by individual elfort conquered that problem, and now the yields were increasing. The limitation of the market, competition from Spain and Italy, and poor prices were against them at the present time, but they hoped eventually to make it a profitable industry.