Mr Walker Suggests S.I. Veterinary College

Press, Volume C, Issue 29634, 3 October 1961, Page 17

Mr Walker Suggests S.I. Veterinary College

(New Zealand Press Association)

INVERCARGILL. Oct. 2. He ™ disappointed that the veterinary college, which will be built at Massey CtAlege. Palmerston North, had not been sited in the South Island, said Mr H. J. Walker, member of Parliament for St Albans, at a meeting in Invercargill this evening. Mr Walker, who is a former accountant of Canterbury Agricultural College, Lincoln, and now a member of the college’s board of governors, said that when the veterinary school was established, there would be three large animal research centres in the North Island. The existing Ruakura and Wallaceville animal research stations, and the new school, would all be in high-rainfall areas, said Mr Walker. There should be at least one such station in the South Island

which could work under South Island conditions. An indication of the lack of balance between the North and South Islands in animal research was shown in the money spent on research in each island, he said. Ruakura received an annual Government grant of £258,000, and Wallaceville, £130,000 a year. The new veterinary school would take the total received by animal research stations each year to more then £500,000. - But in the South Island, only Lincoln College had a small animal research division—which received only £12,000 a year from Government funds. “U is essential to have a major animal research centre in the South Island,” said Mr Walker. “Lincoln College would be a good place to have it” There was a need, Mr Walker said, for more co-operation and co-ordina-tion in agricultural research in New Zealand. The agricultural research centres and the Department of Agriculture all worked independently, and there was little co-operation between them. The best way to get over this was to establish a board of control and co-ordination of research—not necessarily a Government body—so that duplication of research could be avoided, and so that research work could be evenly shared throughout the country, he said.