Dairying prospering

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33478, 8 March 1974, Page 9

Dairying prospering

Suppliers of the Westland Co-operative Dairy Company are continuing to receive high pay-outs and there is a great deal of outside interest in acquiring land in the district which the company serves.

The general manager of the Hokitika-based company, Mr G. T. Bloomfield, said this week that the company was at present paying 80c per kilogram of milk fat and it was antici-

pated that the total payment for the season would be about 110 c per kilogram. This would be a record for the company but was only about 0.5 c higher than last year, he said, and twp years ago the company could actually have paid out more but it had an expansion programme in hand.

Then returns from spray powder and butter were together higher than in the current season. This season returns for spray powder were as high or higher' than two years ago, but be- 1 cause of E.E.C. restrictions on entry into the British market returns from butter were lower. Mr Bloomfield said that Westland suppliers were still receiving less than their North Island cqunter-i parts, but the margin was! diminishing and their total! incomes could actually be! higher because they were' not affected by drought like some parts of the' North Island.

.A point of interest men-, tioned by Mr Bloomfield! was that there had been a “tremendous” number of North Island farmers and sharemilkers who had been inquiring about the possibility of getting land on, the West Coast because of the high price of land in the north and also because of drought. Mr Bloomfield said that he had had more than 50 inquiries in the last month. Farms are, however, 'not easy to come by and he said that he did not know of any on the market at the moment, but where any property did become available there would be about 20 people in for it. The likely Westland payout this season will not be a record for the South Island, according to Mr Bloomfield. Some of the small cheese companies would be paying more, he said.