More Pay For Farm Advisers Recommended

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30811, 24 July 1965, Page 9

More Pay For Farm Advisers Recommended

After reviewing advisory services available to farmers in Britain in his report to the Nuffield Foundation, Mr J. R. Cocks, of Eiffelton, in Mid-Canterbury, who visited Britain last year under a Nuffield scholarship, says that the salary scale for members of New Zealand’s farm advisory service should be raised considerably and this work should provide an attractive future for top graduates from the agricultural colleges. It was h'is view that advisory officers should, have a training in business methods and the psychological approach to best impart their knowledge. He is also of opinion that New Zealand should be spending much more on agricuttunat research. Mr Cocks said that apart from the National Agricultural Advisory Service in Britain, which was very well qualified and well paid, he had been impressed with the really first class work done by the large commercial firms, like Imperial Chemical Industries, in the advisory field. As well as giving technical and management advice, they also kept costed surveys of farm accounts; the universities also did excellent work in conducting costed surveys; and private farm consultants were widely used and their clientele included many of the leading farmers. The accent of advisory services was very much on management advice and approaching farming as a business, he said. While he had always felt that there was no substitute for managing ones own affairs, Mr Cocks said that the age of combines and take-

overs had certainly seen a tremendous increase in group activity by farmers. Buying groups, sefflng groups, rearing groups, machinery syndicates, etc., were very much in evidence throughout Britain, and some saw in this the salvation of the small farmer, but this was problematical.