SHORTAGE OF MILK

Press, Volume LXXXI, Issue 24600, 23 June 1945, Page 2

SHORTAGE OF MILK

REPRESENTATIONS TO GOVERNMENT

REARING OF MORE HEIFERS URGED

Special measures to secure the rearing, particularly in the South Island, of more heifers suitable for milk pro-, duction have recently been urged on the Government as an essential element in overcoming the shortage of milk for town supply. The seasonal shortage of milk has become progressively more serious in recent years, and this winter the shortage is general throughout New Zealand. Several schemes aiming at increasing the rearing of heifers have been put to the Government. Some farmers have suggested a subsidy and others have proposed that a guaranteed price should be offered men on properties suitable for the carrying of young stock over to calving time. This aspect of the problem had been put to the Rehabilitation Department with the strong support of the Minister of Health (the Hon. A. H. Nordmeyer), said a Christchurch man prominently connected with the industry yesterday. A further suggestion had been made, he said, that milk producers, especially those on small areas close to cities whose holdings gave no scope for carryihg dry stock, should do this on a co-operative system. He added that milk suppliers of the Auckland district had, to a great extent, overcome the problem of additions to their milking herds by banding together and paying farmers on suitable country to rear their stock for them. In Canterbury the problem was a real one in that the suitable calves would be dropped mainly in. September and in the normal course of recent years would go into the bobby calf pool for slaughtering. The average town milk producer was not as a rule able to rear calves because of the smallness of his property and the high value of milk on his farm. The need for systematic building up of the herds was obvious when it was realised that quite apart from school milk and the supply of milk to camps and overseas servicemen, in New Zealand, there was a marked tendency for an increase in the consumption of milk a head of population. This was particularly the case in the big towns.