Development Costs

Press, Volume CV, Issue 30971, 29 January 1966, Page 8

Development Costs

pLAIMS that tussock country could be developed for as little as £3 an acre were the subject of comment by Mr W. R. Lobb, superintendent of the Winchmore irrigation research station, when he spoke to runholders at Lake Tekapo last week. Mr Lobb said that this figure had been given to a number of responsible bodies. “I do not wish to be critical of the fact that for £3 you can expect to achieve some result—you might even obtain an economic return on the money spent—but for the consolidation of an economic enterprise, in which full advantage of the development is to be taken, it is doubtful if the development cost will be much less than £lO to £2O a ewe for each ewe increase. “I would not like to see too many cases of wholesale improvement being undertaken from which newspaper panic

headlines can be written, such as was the case for several hill country developers in North Canterbury recently. They no doubt operated on the same philosophy—that £3 an acre is the price they will pay for development of one ewe country to potentially three ewe country.

“I would like to quote the words of a runholder who has been improving his country since 1952—‘d0 not over-do it, do not plan to do too much in any one year, let time be your guide. . . . There is no doubt that the potential of our tussock grasslands is enormous, but initial results are slow. One has to forego income for a long time before the benefits roll in compared with development on the plains. “ ‘Further the runholder faces uncertain prices from the sale of wool and the store sheep market’ ”