The Press SATURDAY, JUNE 22, 1940. Increasing the Wheat Crop

Press, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23053, 22 June 1940, Page 10

The Press SATURDAY, JUNE 22, 1940. Increasing the Wheat Crop

While the Minister for Supply was renewing his appeal to farmers to sow spring wheat, avert a threatened shortage in the 1941 harvest, and save import shipping space and costs, members of the Wheat Research Institute were discussing the ineffectuality of the primary production councils. They resolved, final]}-, to telegraph to the Minister, urging him to promote cooperative organisation for increased cropping next year, particularly through the maximum use of the plant available in local areas. There is a discordance here which will surprise few but trouble many. The Minister, for the Government, wants essential work done. Representative farmers see that the work should be done and can be done and want the Minister’s help in gching it done. The two appeals cross. Yet the r, .hinery of the Primary Production Council, theoretically extended over the whole country, has been in existence for months. The Minister’s appeal should have been unnecessary. The farmers’ appeal should have been unnecessary. The organisation necessary to secure the Minister’s object and theirs should have been smoothly and effectively at work. It isweeks, now, since we drew attention to the fact that the Director of Primary Production was still addressing appeals to farmers, when the time for appeals had passed and the time for concrete schemes and programmed action had come; weeks, also, since we observed that two major demands on the council were (i) for the full use of available plant and materials, and (ii) for a full supply of labour. These, essentially, are the needs emphasised by the discussion of the Wheat Research Institute. The only two considerable achievements of the Primary Production Council—arrangements for increased output of fertiliser and for subsidies on fertiliser —do not touch these needs; and when the Controller of Primary Industries met a large body of farmers at Massey College recently, assembled to discuss ways and means of advancing production, he seems to have encouraged and aided their search by advising them to go homo, stand on their independence, and work harder. Such tough advice is worth no more than eloquent appeals. The farmers cannot organise for this task and put it through without official help. Even the relatively simple problem of arranging the rapid and effective use of available land, plant, materials, and labour in any given district for wheat cropping will be sooner and more surely solved, if the Government co-operates, gives proper agents the authority to take necessary decisions and act, and smooths the way for local effort. The machinery of such, co-operatioi! exists or can swiftly be developed. But it has not yet been made to work. The- situation, potentially, has teen changed in the last fortnight. The Government has found a new conception of the duty before the country and prepared a new policy to fulfil it. But regulations will, not move a ’tractor or reap a harvest. The Government inust move and must lead.