DAIRY OUTPUT IN N.Z.

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27226, 18 December 1953, Page 6

DAIRY OUTPUT IN N.Z.

INCREASE TO RECORD LEVELS BOARD’S ANNUAL REPORT FOR 1952

(New Zealand Press Association) WELLINGTON, December 16. Though the number of dairy farmers in New Zealand supplying factories and the number of factories have declined steadily in the last 20 years,, production has increased to record levels according to the Dairy Board s annual report. Farm and factory units in the industry are becoming larger every year, cows are increasing in number, and production a cow is rising. , , . The report says that dairy cows m milk last January, at 1,960,000, were 54,000 more than in the previous year. Production a cow at reached a record average of 2531 b last season. The increase in production is put down to the effect of large-scale land settlement schemes in the Auckland Province, improved breeding, and the attention being directed to improved strains of pasture seeds, to the need for conservation of feed supplies by hay and silage making, and to the value of rationed grazing by means.of the electric fence. . Dairy farmers supplying factories last season numbered 51.300, a decline of 800 from the previous yeai* and about 19,000 fewer than the total of 20 years ago. Most of the decline in recent years has been caused by small suppliers dropping out. The number of factories operating has fallen from 469 20 years ago to 366 last season. With larger units absorbing the increased production, tne capacity of many dairy factories has often been fully taxed, says the report, and labour difficulties have sometimes been acute. Modern collection methods, notably the tanker system in the Waikato, are helping to increase efficiency. Large increases in the manufacture of milk by-products have occurred since 1946. Skim milk powder accounts for two-thirds of the increase in this period. The quantity made last season was almost 39,000 tons. Production of condensed and powdered milk has risen strikingly in the last five or six years. By last season the annual output of ' all dairy products, other than butter and cheese, including condensed milk, milk powders, sugar of milk, and casein had risen to more than 80.000 tons—a five-fold increase over the pre-war figure. New Zealand is shown as easily the largest exporter of butter and 1 cheese in the world. In the export of condensed and powdered milk in 1952 New Zealand, at 69,000 tons, 1 was fourth to the Netherlands at ' 234,000 tans, to the United States at • 102.000 tons, and to Australia at 71,000 tons.