“N.Z. Farmers Little To Learn From America”

Press, Volume XCIX, Issue 29291, 24 August 1960, Page 15

“N.Z. Farmers Little To Learn From America”

New Zealand, which depends largely on its agricultural industry for its economic welfare, can learn little from the United States of America, said Mr A. W. Packard, of Christchurch, a former

agricultural editor of “The Press" yesterday on his return from a visit of two months and a half to America. Mr Packard travelled widely in the States of Washington, Oregon, California, Nevada and Arizona and took a particular interest in farming. “But farming as a way of life is fast disappearing from the United States except in the backwoods areas and on the impoverished acres,” he said. “The average small farmer in America does not pay income tax simply because he does not get enough money. The big corporations have moved on to the land and it is leased out, and in some cases leased out again.” A New Zealander would miss the “roses round the door,” he said. The day of the individual farmer had gone, and while the land produced some wonderful crops—“everything frcm soup to nuts”—the land had become a happy hunting ground for big business, with the individual touch lost. “We have little if anything to learn from American farming generally,” Mr Packard said.

“After passing through the seedgrowing areas of Oregon I have even greater respect than before for New Zealand grassland farming. We are a small country, but the rest of the world can take a

place behind us for efficiency in pastoral management and in our meat freezing industry. In many respects our dairying industry is also well ahead in organisation.” After seeing some of the meatpacking houses of America—admittedly not the biggest —Mr Packard compared the collection of ramshackle buildings with used car lots next door with the freezing works surrounded by lawns and gardens he had known in New Zealand. In a 500,000-dollar supermarket in Hawaii Mr Packard asked about New Zealand meat, Yes, there was some, he was told. He found it marked “prime New York cut,” and in faint lead pencil there was the information that the beef came from New Zealand. “What passes for lamb is tough old ewe mutton,” Mr Packard said. Americans were not generally keen on lamb and mutton, and he could not blame them after seeing some that was offered. The genuine American lamb was “polished up” with very little fat and made to look good, so that alongside it the New Zealand lamb with its fat did not look so attractive. American beef was "as tender as a chicken’s heart,” Mr Packard said, but to a New Zealander it had an entire absence of flavour. Beef cattle were no longer fattened on the farms but on feeding lots, and this forced feeding resulted in a lack of flavour in the meat.