METHODS OF FARMING

Dominion, Volume 23, Issue 79, 27 December 1929, Page 15

METHODS OF FARMING

LORD BLEDISLOE’S VIEWS VALUE OF SMALL HOLDINGS Small holdings and co-operation are vigorously advocated by Lord Bledisloe in an article in the “Spectator of November 2, since Lord Bledisloe hits' beeu appointed to succeed' Sir Charles 1’ ergusson as Governor-General. Agriculture in Britain lie describes as our oldest, greatly depressed and most essential industry—more essential to-day than ever before with the depression of its urban rivals, and more depressed than it has been since the early nineties of the past century.” , Lord Bledisloe remarks upon the anomaly that .while agricultural land m Britain, for its quality and accessibility to markets, is the cheapest in the whole world, the price of food commodities is relatively high, and consequently induces other countries to send their products in ever increasing quantities and at a profit to themselves. He concludes that “if there is little or no profit to the home agricultural producer, eVen when the whole burden of local taxation is lifted from his land, there is far too big a gap between the price which the producer receives and that which the consumer pays, and that that gap can only be effectively bridged by widespread cooperation, not merely in the sale of produce, but also in the purchase of raw materials, in road and rail transport, and in credit facilities. "Family Farmers.” “But agricultural co-operation has been found by long experience in different parts of the world to have no vigorous growth except among a community of occupying owners and particularly among those smaller yeomen, who are often described as ‘peasant proprietors’ or ‘family farmers’,” he continues. “There can be no doubt that in course of time both the landlord-tenant system and the farm of over 300 acres of fertile land are bound to give place, in an overcrowded country like ours, to a system in which smaller holdings, owned by the farmer, and worked solely by himself and his family, will largely predominate. The best of fertilisers is not comparable with the ‘magic of ownership’ as a stimulus to the productivity and profit-earning capacity of agricultural land.” <— Marketing of Produce. Lord Bledisloe discusses this aspect of the question in some detail and proceeds :—“Under such a system, with the help of co-opel'atiou, improved transport, good quality male stock, and sound knowledge of the use of artificial fertilisers, the land of this country could produce at least twice the amount of food that is now raised from it and at far greater profit to the husbandman. Moreover, the co-operative system, if scientifically developed, would put a stop to the killing competition which now exists among farmers. would destroy the cruelly-unfair

‘rings’ now formed among dealers to the farmers’ detriment in almost every provincial market, and would at tho same time effect a greater aud much-needed uniformity of agricultural output of the type or quality which the consumer demands. Furthermore, if the farmers control, as they should control, the wholesale market or factory through which their products are sold or converted into marketable commodities, they themselves could attend exclusively to their proper business of farming (the representative of the shop or factory periodically calling for such products at tjieir farms) and thus save the dreadful waste of time, and sometimes of self-respect, in the process of constantly attending the market in the nearest provincial town. Peopling the Empire. “Finally the constitution of these family farms owned (iu effect) by their cultivators has become an urgent need for the output not only of home-grown food, but also of efficient human beings well equipped for the tusk of peopling our overseas Empire with settlers of British race. It is, indeed, the human products of a peasant proprietary system, such as exists in Scandinavian countries, with all the resourcefulness, self-reliance and business capacity, which such a system inevitably produces, which are providing in countries like Canada, Australia and New Zealand a far more experienced and more confident type of settler than the Old Country is able to do, either from among its urban unemployed or from among the ill-equipped denizens •of a devitalised countryside operating helplessly under an outworn territorial and economic system.