POSITION OF FARMING

Press, Volume LXXVII, Issue 23323, 8 May 1941, Page 3

POSITION OF FARMING

PROBLEMS OUTLINED TO PROGRESS LEAGUE Some of the reasons for the ‘‘.somewhat invidious position of the farming industry to-day, r and some of the problems which the league might hope to have solved, were outlined to the Canterbury Progress League’s executive last night by Mr J. E. Strachan. Mr Strachan is one of a sub-committee of three (including Professor A. H. Tocker and Mr A. M. Carpenter) set up by the league to define the scope of the league’s inquiry into the industry’s position and to recommend methods of procedure for placing it on a better footing. It was obvious, said Mr Strachan, that farmers of New Zealand were not alone in their somewhat invidious position. Practically every country was faced with difficulties in maintaining the farming industry and keeping people on the land. Nor was the problem confined to farmers, as the whole community, every section, was feeling • the stress at the moment. However, even at this stage it was felt.that certain steps could be taken which would improve the outlook and not merely bring an immediate and temporary relief. There was always a tendency to look on the farming industry as of less importance than other— manufacturing : —industries. That extended to the social outlook. There was a likelihood that the farmer, who was a particularly helpless kind of individual, was open to victimisation of sorts, Mr Strachan said. The farmer had a weakness for. living on the land, and even if it provided only, a home and hard work men would be found still living on the land. That made the farmer easily victimised and imposed on by a community that was chiefly concerned with profits. The young sons and daughters of the farmers were not having any of that, but the older formers were staying on. He had, said Mr Strachan, called it a weakness, but it was really a virtue because the country would be in queer street otherW products of industrialisation had changed consumers’ needs, and farmers had lost some of their markets. Consumers to-day wanted factory products, refinements, and cars, and farmers’ products were being not merely supplemented, but supplanted. Fawners themselves were becoming more dependent on factory products and less self-sufficient. ' If every other member of the community was exercised by a particular motive the farmer was forced into the same channels. The farmer was changing his practice, and in some ways' it was less scientific. To-day a short-term policy was followed, to the, detriment or deterioration of the land. However, there were matters which might meet with an internal solution — anomalies in the incidence of taxation, and questions of labour supply and the superior attraction of less important occupation, Mr Strachan said. One could not plan far' without some forecast of the future, but it was probably more than wishful thinking to envisage a closer cooperation among.the democracies when the war was over—a reaction in favour of democracies and probably a breaking down of barriers of the past. So a greater future for this country could be envisaged, and. a greater future for the farming industry. If, on the other hand, there were to be national isolation, the future for farming was a poor one.