NEW ZEALANDERS HELP SOUTH AMERICA

Press, Volume CV, Issue 30953, 8 January 1966, Page 9

NEW ZEALANDERS HELP SOUTH AMERICA

[Written by a special correspondent of "The Press.’’] New Zealand agricultural scientists and technicians—-all key people in their own fields —are doing a sterling job to promote agriculture and improve* the strained economies of a number of Latin American countries where poverty lives side by side with wealth.

Many of these people are former staff members of Ruakura Agricultural Research Centre and Lincoln College, a notable figure in the latter category being Mr Albert Flay. Most of them are now very highly paid.

Stimulating reports of the work being done in. Latin America by four New Zealand scientists and nine technicians who have gone there on their own initiative in the last four years have been brought back to New Zealand by Dr. C. P. McMeekan, former director of Ruakura Agricultural Research Centre.

Dr. McMeekan, who left Ruakura nearly four years ago to become deputy director of the agricultural division of the World Bank, has travelled very extensively in the course of his duties and has seen the work being done in Latin America by his former associates.

Resigned Post He has resigned his deputy director’s post but has a new job as special adviser to the Bank which will take him out of New Zealand from time to time. He leaves on January 10 for Paris where he will represent the Bank in negotiations with an African country. Later he will visit Tunisia and Morocco to investigate the possibility of World Bank investment in dairy and beef cattle production in the two countries. In the meantime, Dr. McMeekan, once an outspoken and controversial figure in the New Zealand farming scene, is attending to interests in New Zealand and spending some time on his own farm at Puketurua in the Waikato. “I will be back in New Zealand in time for tupping on my own farm in the autumn and maybe for some fishing,” he said in an interview in Hamilton. Dr. McMeekan said that in his judgment the New Zealand agriculturists in Latin America were gaining very valuable experience at no cost to New Zealand. He considered it a great pity that so many of them had been refused leave for the twoyear period of their contracts and had been forced to sacrifice the possibility of easy return to New Zealand.

Questioned about possible effects on New Zealand of expanding agriculture in Latin America, he replied with a dash of his old fire: “It is a stupid argument to say that this will harm New Zealand trade.”

“After having worked for and in 92 countries over the last four years, I am so convinced of the need for increased production of high quality foodstuffs and of the tremendous demand for such food that as a New Zealand farmer I am not one bit worried that I have personally helped to increase meat production in Latin America. “One example of the desperate shortage is that Argentina is maintaining her exports only by having four meatless days a week. Uruguay is doing the same with five meatless days. "The population of both countries is exploding and I see no danger to our export trade even if the production of both countries were trebled. None of these coun-

tries import dairy produce at present and none of our efforts to help them are likely to affect the international trade in dairy produce.”

Dr. McMeekan said the rate at which livestock production could be increased was very slow in Latin America. Every Latin American country was short of breeding stock and one of his personal problems was that of getting breeding animals for these countries—hence the recent import of stock from Australia and New Zealand to Chile.

Discussing some of the activities of New Zealanders in Latin America, Dr. McMeekan said it had never been made clear in New Zealand that the agriculturists fell into two distinct groups—scientists and practical technical people. The scientists, all of whom were formerly on the Ruakura staff and who are now employed by the Food and Agriculture Organisation, are Dr. Neil Worker, Dr. P. J. Brumby, Mr C. Percival, and Miss Audrey Stevenson. They are engaged on special fund projects financed by the United Nations.

Now manager of a project at Balcarce in Argentina, an area 300 miles south of Buenos Aires, Dr. Worker went to Argentina to specialise in the use of radio-active isotopes in animal nutrition and to work on an unusual disease of cattle involving calcificaton of the heart and lungs.

Great Potential While he and his associates have virtually solved this problem he has regarded it as a sideline to demonstrating to Argentinians that it is possible to convert one ewe to the acre country into six ewes to the acre country with New Zealand methods of pasture establishment and management.

Dr. McMeekan said Dr. Workers’ efforts could transform the whole livestock picture in Argentina. The World Bank had recognised this and was now appraising a loan application from the Argentine Government to expand Dr. Worker’s methods to 1000 ranches in the southern parts of the Buenos Aires province. Miss Stevenson initially worked with Dr. Worker at Balcarce as a biochemist and contributed to the solution of the cattle disease problem. Now she is stationed at the Alberto Boeger Institute which is regarded as the Ruakura of Uruguay and is building up a biochemical section for plant and animal research. At the same institute Mr Percival is working as a dairying specialist. He has established a New Zealand type dairy farm in a country where New Zealand methods are unknown but where they can be easily applied.

Dr. McMeekan said Mr Percival could easily contribute as much to Uruguay as Dr. Worker promised to do for Argentina.

Stock Director

Dr. Brumby, former chief animal geneticist at Ruakura, became regional director of livestock for F.A.O. in Latin America a year ago. He now works in all 13 of the Latin American countries and has become widely recognised as an authority on animal improvement On the practical side, nine New Zealanders who were classified as technicians in their own country are now working directly for the Governments of Latin American countries and are employed on projects financed by the World Bank. One of them is Mr R. M. Gallagher, formerly a technician in charge of beef cattle at Ruakura and now director of a big beef cattle project in Paraguay. Perhaps the best evidence of the worth of his work is that seven other Latin American countries have asked the Word Bank to find another Gallagher. Mr Gallagher was Initially in charge of a pilot project involving only 150 ranches and a World Bank investment of five million dollars. The bank has recently made a second loan to Paraguay for the next stage of development which will cost 10 million dollars.

In two years, according to Dr. McMeekan, Mr Gallagher will have affected improvement on about 70 per cent of the cattle ranches of Paraguay through the simple provision of fencing, water, stock handling facilities and disease control.

In Uruguay the World Bank has its most successful development project in agriculture. The success of this operation, which has produced a grassland revolution in the country, is due largely to the leadership of two New Zealanders, Mr Albert Flay, formerly of Lincoln College, and Mr E. A. Clarke, who is now back in his job as superintendent of the Ruakura hill country research sttaion at Whatawhata. Mr Clarke introduced aerial topdressing and oversowing, which has worked even more spectacularly than it does in New Zealand, and in addition he has improved animal husbandry methods in the use of improved pastures. Mr Flay has introduced the production of small seeds—an industry which previously did not exist —and his work will make Uruguay independent of small seed imports. Dr. McMeekan said that pastures improved under the Bank project yielded three to five times as much as the native prairies and if this was continued long enough it would make Uruguay once more a major exporter of meat. In Chile two three-man teams of New Zealanders have been established to assist a local agricultural credit development organisation to finance improved pastures and increased livestock production.

Like Taranaki Each team consists of a pasture man, a cattle man and a sheep man. One team is working in the Osorno disrict 400 miles south of Santiaga, an area almost indistinguishable from the Taranaki of 40 years ago. \

Here, Mr F. E. T. Suckling, formerly of the Grasslands Division of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research is teaching local people how to establish good pastures with New Zealand certified seeds. Mr Hans Pos, a former dairy and beef technician at Ruakura, is in charge of a dairy and beef cattle project and Mr R. Dreaver, formerly of Lincoln and Ruakura, is in charge of sheep development. The second team is at Temuca, about 200 miles north, an area which is similar to the Feilding and Manawatu country. Mr Peter Hildreth, formerly of the Maori Affairs Department, is handling the pasture side. Mr Gerald Day, formerly of the Dairy Board staff, is in charge of dairy development, and Mr D. A. Bilkey, formerly of Ruakura, is doing the sheep work.

These two teams have been in the field only a few months but already they are making a definite impression on the outlook and approach of the people. They are badly needed because Chile is very short of meat and milk.

A third team, which will probably be recruited from Australia, will go shortly to the central basin country near Santiaga to increase the efficiency of livestock farming under irrigation and also to improve hill country farming. Dr. McMeekan said that in all these Latin American countries New Zealanders were demonstrating the potential. Their achievements had shown that they were the best possible men for' the job.