THE NEW ZEALAND FRONT

Press, Volume LXXVI, Issue 23080, 24 July 1940, Page 13

THE NEW ZEALAND FRONT

It is so urgent to conserve our foreign credits that the importation of any commodity that can be grown on our own farms should be reduced to the barest possible necessities. This makes an increase in the production of wheat, barley, and oats, all of which products had to be imported last year, essential. There are indications that this fact in respect of wheat, is being realised The most reliable estimates place the seeding this autumn and spring at something near 300,000 acres. At the return of slightly more than 31 bushels an acre, the average of the threshing returns to date for last year’s crop, this area would produce slightly more than 9,250,000 bushels, a quantity that would ensure a sufficiency for the year’s requirements. But all this wheat is not sown yet. and growers should not slacken on their spring sowing objective. It would be a useful and comforting thought that the Dominion, for the first time for a number of years, had produced all its wheat needs, with a small balance to carry over until the following season. At one time, when the country exported wheat, and when there was little need to fear a shortage, millers made it their policy to carry over up to 1,000,000 bushels for mixing with the first of the following season’s wheat. The prospect of being in a position to do the same again, even if only a possibility, is satisfactory. Next to wheat the production of oats will have to be increased. The statistics just published of the last season’s crop show that the area threshed to date is only 41,463 acres, producing 1,755,986 bushels. This quantity follows on that of similar small returns in recent years. It is a safe assertion that the quantity could be doubled without much fear of an unmarketable or unusable surplus. Oats have taken the place of turnips to a large extent for winter stock feeding. The area of turnips has declined most markedly in the last decade, and oats, the most available and most easily produced substitute for winter needs, has declined in sympathy instead of increasing in inverse ratio.

The production of barley has increased only to a minor extent in recent years, and with the increasing feed needs it was found necessary this season to import 50,000 tons from Australia. Much of this barley has been used for baconer production. The barley was bought at a very cheap price, but if; would be foolish to rely on similar conditions again. The average area sown in barley annually in the Dominion is 25,000 acres, and the expanding pig feed needs of the North Island would need the sowing of a further 20,000 acres to meet the position. The principal barley growing province of the Dominion is Canterbury. In this product—late sown, heavy yielding, easily grown, and exacting little fertility from the soil in comparison with other cereal crops —there is surely scope for a great increase. If the objective in baconer production is to be obtained a big acreage increase will be indispensable.