Farm Club Movement Spreads

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30829, 14 August 1965, Page 8

Farm Club Movement Spreads

The South Island now has a network of I farm improvement 1 clubs. I ! Nine years ago the first farm improvement club was formed in the South Island. That was the Lauriston Farm Improvement Club in MidCanterbury, which this week held its annual general meeting. At this meeting Professor J. D. Stewart, professor of farm management at Lincoln College, noted that the South Island now seemed to be completely covered by clubs. With clubs at Takaka, Blenheim, Cheviot, Rangiora, Leeston, in Mid-Canterbury, South Canterbury, North Otago, South Otago, Southland and now the ! West Coast, Professor Stewart said that, except in isolated areas, farmers throughout the island should now have an opportunity to join a club. Oamarn The most recent club formed had been at Oamaru, where he had had the pleasure of sharing in persuading 90 farmers at one meeting, and in that district he said that 90 farmers had been signed up before there was an adviser. The Lauriston club chairman, Mr R. F. Letham, said that the club's advice had been readily given when sought by outside groups i forming clubs of their own. •The club had been associated with forming of clubs at ; Hokitika, Timaru and Oamaru He had also been called on I by people connected with several clubs in Australia, j Professor Stewart described I the type of service given to jits members by a club as a luxury type of advisory service. He said he believed that the future of the movement would continue to be sound. The biggest problem at present was a continuing supply of good advisory officers, and he said that it was pleasing that South Island i clubs were conscious of the competition across the Tasman for these officers. He indicated, however, that the supply of advisory officers might change in the not too far distant future. Lincoln College was still turning out these people and with the ' size of classes growing, he said it was possible that there might even be a buyers’ market, although a lot of these people were bonded. It was thought that the diploma of valuation and farm management course would be up to a strength of 50 or 60 in three or four years' time and the degree course in farm management was also growing. Referring to an issue raised at the meeting—the adverse effect that a practice being encouraged by the clubs’ advisers might have on the market for a particular commodity by farmers in general Professor Stewart said it was his feeling that the adviser’s first obligation was to the farmer who paid

■him, and he did not need to be too preoccupied with an obligation to the community at large. The report of the clubs three advisers, Messrs R. H. N. Smith, J. W. Kinvig and B. P. Royds, said that club membership had risen from an original 23 members in 1956 to a current 120 members plus a waiting list Three advisers were now employed by the club and as membership continued to grow, it was expected to become necessary to employ a further adviser. “A large number of farmers have been looking over fences for many years very critically and are now deciding that the club has something to offer them.” The 120 farms serviced by the club have an area of about 62,000 acres and are valued at about £4.5m. In the year ended in June about 1260 visits were made to these farms at about monthly intervals. The advisers said that net incomes in the 1963-64 season had been the highest ever, even with increased expenditure on development and income held out of that year with the wool freeze and unsold small seeds. The 196465 income year, even with very low wool weights and prices, lower lambing percentages over-all and in some cases expenditure on boughtin feed, was likely to be at least as good as in 1963-64. A large acreage of crop on club farms had more than compensated over-all for the reduced income from stock enterprises.

Question Later in their report the advisers tommented that the club had now been in operation for nine years and in the early years considerable progress had been made with management which improved farmers’ gross and net returns. A pertinent question to ask today was: Had the club been able to maintain this progress? From a comparison of the prices paid for the important farm products in the 1960-61 season and the 1964-65 season it would be seen that over-all prices were ivery little different—lamb and peas were higher, while linseed and white clover were cheaper. The seasons had been similar in the two periods with a dry spring and wet summer and autumn. ‘‘Although climate and prices were very similar last season to those ' existing in 1960451, those farmers for whom we have records, on average have made a 40 per cent higher gross income and a 60 per cent higher net income, in spite of a higher rate of spending on farm improvements.

“This means that the productivity of these club farmers has increased 40 per cent in the space of only four years, which is at the very high rate of 10 per cent per year. The Government is hoping that New Zealand farmers may be able to average 4 per cent. “Over the last five years 20 per cent of club farmers in the two oldest groups have acquired more land. 24 per cent have begun new homes and 40 per cent new woolsheds, grain storage facilities or other substantial buildings.

“The longer you are in the club the more you feel the stimulus and the satisfaction that the service is giving,” said the chairman, Mr Letham. tn his report Mr Letham said that the farming industry was suffering from a further cost rise of about 4 per cent this year and also competition for labour and finance from secondary industries. Fanning, the major industry in New Zealand both in the amount of overseas exchange earned and the amount of capital invested in the business, was being asked to increase its production so ■ that the standard of living in the country as a whole could ibe maintained. The Agricultural Development Conference had been set up to find ways and means of getting this increased production. “The Government is ignoring so many of its recommendations . . and it appears to be bending over backwards in offering special favours to monopolies like Morrisons Bicycles, Fibre Makers, N.Z., Ltd., and the New Zealand Iron and Steel Company. Until we get economic stability, a fair competition for all in business and the tax position adjusted to the inflated currency, farmers will more than ever turn to experts for advice,” said Mr Letham.