Saw New Zealand Sheep On Indian Visit

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30741, 4 May 1965, Page 18

Saw New Zealand Sheep On Indian Visit

A New Zealander who recently returned from a Young Farmer exchange visit .overseas saw some of the New Zealand sheep which were sent to India under the arrangements of C.0.R.5.0. with funds provided by the Young Farmers’ Club movement.

Mr W. S. Penno, of the Morven Young Farmers’ Club, told the annual meeting of the Canterbury Council of the New Zealand Federation of Young Farmers’ Clubs yesterday that he had seen some of the sheep on Malpura farm, where an Australian was in charge of a 4000-acre property in the Rajasthan desert. The Romneys there were fit and well but were needing special care and attention. They were not particularly well adapted to the desert conditions. Special shelters were being provided for them. Their wool had become quite strong and had lost a certain amount of its greasiness. It was

’thought that these changes might be due to a trace-ele-ment problem in the area. The Southdowns that had also been sent over seemed to be doing a little better than the Romneys. Rambouillet sheep had just arrived from the United States and it was felt that these sheep might be more suitable crossed with the sheep which lived in the area. In Thailand, Mr Penno visited the Volunteer Service Abroad team working there. He said that for the next term there men were needed with a farming background. The work that was being done by this organisation was worthy of the support of the federation, said Mr Penno.

The retiring chairman of the council, Mr R. M. Sinclair, of Waimate, in his annual report, said that an appeal for the Volunteer Service Abroad was the major community service project of the federation for this year, and, has involved clubs in considerable effort. When the meeting received reports from its various districts about their efforts in support of this appeal, the newly-elected president, Mr G. J. Barclay, said he thought that Canterbury would be one of the leading councils in contributing to the appeal. The members of one club have undertaken the erection of 50 chains of fencing to raise money for the appeal.

Mr Penno said that in visiting both Nepal and Thailand he had in mind that some day there might be an exchange scheme between young farmers of those countries and New Zealand.

Mr Penno spent six months in the United States and also had two months in Britain and spent a short time on the Continent before going to India. One of the things that he had learnt from the 4 H clubs in. the United States, which are the counterparts of the young farmers’ clubs in New Zealand, was the greater emphasis that they placed on the younger age group, on the basis that even if they did not enter into farming actively they had a realisation of the part that farming played.