N.Z. Farm Research Held To Have World Standing

Press, Volume XCIII, Issue 27859, 6 January 1956, Page 6

N.Z. Farm Research Held To Have World Standing

(New Zealand Press Association)

AUCKLAND, January 5.

“New Zealand has now reached the level of a world-ranked research centre of agricultural development,” Dr. C. P. McMeekan, head of the Ruakura Animal Research Station, said today. This was his reply to a British expert’s query, “Couldn’t this country become the forcing house for the growth of Commonwealth agriculture?”

The questioner was the managing director of Britain's National Research Development Corporation, the Earl of Halsbury. “We have reached that stage already in both pasture research and livestock production,” Dr. McMeekan said. “At least half the results of Ruakura’s work are published first in overseas scientific journals. “We send out from 300 to 500 reprints of each research paper to world scientists who ask for them, apart from those that go to our regular subscribers.

“The herd improvement scheme now used by the British Milk Marketing Board is based mainly on that of the New Zealand Dairy Board, developed in conjunction with Ruakura.' 1

New Zealand was also very quick to develop overseas discoveries, Dr. McMeekan said. The “deep-freeze” technique in artificial breeding had originated at Cambridge University, but almost immediately had been given much larger trials at Ruakura. New Zealand had now as much experience as any other country in its use.,

Hundreds of requests for advice came to Ruakura from organisations and farmers all over the world, he said. Many were from North and South America, as well as Europe. If the Food and Agriculture Organisation had not made wise use of New Zealanders so far. this was not because it had not tried to recruit in the Dominion. The problem was the

dearth o£ research men in New Zea, land.

The Earl of Halsbury J s statement appears in the magazine “New Commonwealth,” "New Zealand is a magnificent country still grievously underpopulated,” he says. “With every industrial settler she must import or create a quota of industrial capital to support him. The application Qf research requiring a low ratio of capital to labour employed would, therefore, be naturally attractive to New Zealand. In agriculture she is highly science-conscious, and her grassland management seems nearly miraculous."

Britain’s National Research Development Corporation was set up towards the end of the Second World War to ensure that scientific discoveries are developed and applied. It leases and sells rights in them to commercial organisations.