Some Maori Farm Units ‘Uneconomic’

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30558, 29 September 1964, Page 23

Some Maori Farm Units ‘Uneconomic’

(Neto Zealand Press Association) WELLINGTON, September 27. Mr John Booth, secretary of the Maori Council, said in Wellington this evening that the breaking up of Maori farmland into small holdings is making it difficult for the land to be farmed economically.

After the council’s meeting today, Mr Booth said: “The problem is being got over by amalgamation of small-hold-ings into farming blocks which can be worked as an efficient farming unit.” The Maori Council decided at its meeting that multiple ownership of Maori land was not necessarily a bar to efficient farming—any more than shareholding was a bar to efficient company management. But the council found that

uneconomic partitioning of Maori land was a barrier to its efficient use. One member, Mr H. J. Ngata, of Gisborne, said that in Maori land development the need was not for legislative changes, but rather for a policy of developing Maori land by, and for, Maoris. He said this should include provision for training young Maori farmers. Mr Ngata was supported by the council chairman (Sir Turi Carroll), who said the Maori people could be trained to farm and “stand on their own feet.”