SCIENTIFIC AID FOR FARMERS

Press, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22430, 17 June 1938, Page 12

SCIENTIFIC AID FOR FARMERS

NEED OF CO-OPERATION WITH DEPARTMENT HON. W. LEE MARTIN’S APPEAL « ____ [THE PRESS Special Service.] AUCKLAND. June 16. A desire that farmers themselves should, as practical men, co-operate as far as possible with the officers of the Department of Agriculture was expressed by the Minister for Agriculture (the Hon. W. Lee Martin), speaking at the opening of new plant at the factory of the East Tamaki Cooperative Dairy Company, Ltd. He said that for many years the officers of the department had been looked on as inspectors and as a kind of “Nosey Parker.” “On my travels, I am surprised to find there are so many farmers who do not realise the extent to which the department is influencing the primary production of the Dominion,” the Minister said, “It is not a spectacular department, but it is playing a very important part in the country’s development. The voting of £753,000 to the department last year was the highest amount ever voted in the history of agriculture in New Zealand, and the whole of this sum is being spent in a hundred and one ways in giving service.” However, experts who were seeking solutions of farming problems could not achieve success without the assistance and co-operation of those who were engaged in primary production. For many years the department’s men were looked on as inspectors, but they were now changing all that, and they were pointing out that the officers were there as instructors. He was trying to impress on every representative of the department not to do those things which would irritate the farmer, but to make himself a welcome guest because of the instruction he could give.