FALL IN PRODUCTION

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LXVII, Issue 12822, 17 August 1939, Page 6

FALL IN PRODUCTION

LOSS OB' £4,000,000 Leaders of the dairy industry are seriously perturbed about the fall in output of butter and cheese by New Zealand in the past, two years, said Mr E. H. Rhodes, chairman of directors of the Te Awamutu Co-operative Dairy Company, Ltd., at the annual meeting’. This fall, he said, represented a loss in production of about £ 4,000,000, occurring at a time when there was greater need than ever for increased production of primary products. He believed, however, that the Government was fully alive to the necessity of encouraging production in the dairying industry by every means possible. t

Apart from the dry spell, which commenced last February, Mr Rhodes considered that the difficulty of securing adequate skilled labour had also been a factor in declining production. In many cases the type of labour offering had been most unsuitable, and it must be made clear that the dairy farmer could not carry on with the help of labour which frequently represented the “rejects” of the cities. “Farming is a skilled occupation to-day,” he said, “and the labour problem will always be difficult until wages and conditions on the farm are at least as attractive as those enjoyed in other branches of industry.” A debatable point in the industry, said the speaker,. was whether the guaranteed price ■ provided the dairy farmer with a sufficient margin above costs to give him a standard of living commensurate with that enjoyed by other sections of the community rendering equal service, enabling him at the same time to pay adequate wages for farm labour. Quite a number of dairy farmers could undoubtedly manage fairly well on the present price, because the whole of the labour was kept within the family. On the other hand, there could be no doubt that fai-mers milking large herds, and employing outside labour, were finding the greatest difficulty in making farming remunerative under present conditions.