"PRODUCE MORE."

Auckland Star, Volume LXXI, Issue 97, 24 April 1940, Page 11

"PRODUCE MORE."

CALL TO FARMERS.

UNITED KINGDOM'S NEEDS.

BUTTERFAT IN DEMAND.

(By Telegraph.—Press Association.)

DANNEVIRKE, this day.

An appeal to the patriotism of the farmers of the Dominion was made by -Mr. K. B. Tennent. Director of the National Council of Production, at a meeting in Dannevirke yesterday. He appealed to them to grow more hay, ensilage and turnips, to reverse the tendency for dairy cow numbers to decline, and to produce more butterfat as their essential war effort. This could he done most rapidly, he said, by improving supplementary feed provision, and after that by better general management and by increasing the size of herds, in the first instance by culling fewer cows and after that by saving more calves.

Prior to making the appeal, Mr. lennent had pointed out that owing to Britain's foreign sources of imported butter U-ing either completely cut off or threatened. New Zealand farmers had an opportunity as never before of show-

ing practical patriotism by producing every possible ounce of butterfat in the knowledge that civilians in Britain and our armies overseas could absorb more than was available for them. In 1938 New Zealand supplied just over half the butter used by ISritain that came from tin- l-.inpire. Sources of foreign supplies now cut off or threatened amounted to 98 per cent of such supplies, being 44 per cent of the total consumption of the L nited Kingdom. There was little doubt that the primary re»ources of the P.mpire would be strained to the utter-nio.-t to meet the position in Britain.