VEAL PRODUCTION TO HELP DAIRYING CRISIS

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28559, 12 April 1958, Page 14

VEAL PRODUCTION TO HELP DAIRYING CRISIS

(New Zealand Press Association)

NEW PLYMOUTH, April 11. The New Zealand dairy farmer should use up to 10 per cent, of his herd as nurse mothers for up to three or four vealers, so switching his production to meat instead of dairy produce to meet the present crisis, said the chairman of the Dairy Products Marketing Commission (Mr R. A. Candy) at the annual Taranaki ward conference of the Dairy Board at Stratford today. He suggested this as a practical means of. meeting the Immediate crisis. “Only this morning we read of the demand for New Zealand meat in the United States. I have talked to the chairman of the Meat Board (Mr J. D. Ormond) and be assures me that there is a market for any beef, Jersey or otherwise, that we can produce by this method.” Dr. John Hammond, an English authority on animal production, who recently visited New Zealand, had also approved the idea, he said. A cow producing from three to four gallons of milk per day in the flush would be capable of rearing three or four calves and doing (hem well, said Mr Candy. The calves could be reared until they were 10 months old and the payment for their meat would in the case of three calves be the equivalent of production from a cow producing 3001 b of butterfat. This would be something to offset the disastrous reduction which had brought prices down to the equivalent of Is 7d per lb of butterfat for butter and 2s Id per lb for cheese, Mr Candy said. [The basic guaranteed price for butterfat for butter this season is 36.25d.] “While we, as dairy farmers, have rightly been granted protection by legislation against meeting immediately the catastrophic falls in the prices for our butterfat, we have also recognised the principle that, over a period of years, we. could not get more for our goods than they realised on the markets of the world. Therefore, any payment made to us by the Government is a loan to the dairy industry repayable at some time in the future,” Mr Candy said. “We would be foolish if we were to add to that loan, as we surely will do, if we have further

increased production in the immediate future," he warned. According to Mr Ormond, the market for beef and veal was likely to be good for another 12 months at least, Mr Candy laid in reply to a question by Mr W. Marr, of Kaponga. On veal, the farmer could expect a return ot £3O, against the £45 that could be expected from the guaranteed price, but the net over-all position was likely to be as good.