FARMING PROBLEMS

Dominion, Volume 27, Issue 305, 21 September 1934, Page 4

FARMING PROBLEMS

Representation on Meat Producers’ Board

MANAWATU ASSOCIATION Dominion Special' Service. Palmerston North, September 20. “AVe now have 26 dairy companies joined up with the association, and I would urge all companies to bring before the association any questions affecting (ho industry that • :quire adjustment,” stated the president, Mr. S. A. Broadbelt (Levin) in his report to the annual meeting of the Alanawatu and AA’cst Coast Dairy Factories’ Association to-day. ‘‘l would point out that dairy companies’ associations similar to ours are now operating in the AVairarapa. South Auckland, Taranaki, Bush and Hawke’s Bay areas.” continued Air. Broadbelt. It was possibly debatable whether further expansion in production was desirable, but it appeared to be inevitable with the improvement of farms, stock and dairy practice. In 1932-33 some 117,719 tons of butter were graded, and in the 193334 season this had increased to 131.962 tons, an increase of 11.76 per cent. Cheese production during the same period had increased from 90.944 tons to 95.091 tons. Air. Broadbelt stressed the value of herd testing. In 1910. he said, only 815 cows out of approximately 583,186 cows in the Dominion were under test, but in the 1933-34 season there were 275,000 cows out of 1,960.000 cows in milk under test. Pig-raising, he said, had become a valuable subsidiary of dairy farming, but a quota bogey had risen to frighten farmers. All the energy devoted to the raising of pigs would be useless unless a reasonably expansive market could be obtained. There -were twice as many breeding sows this year as previously, but they would be useless unless there was a market for their produce. The association decided to suggest tb the Minister of Agriculture and the Dairy Produce Board that it should be afforded an opportunity of discussing any proposed legislation following on the findings of the Dairy Commission before it became law. Alessrs. C. G. C. Dermer and Dalzicll (butter interests) and J. Boyce and S. E. Algar (cheese interests), were re-elected to the executive. Mr. E. B. Jennings was re-appointed auditor. Discussion on the importance of farm dairy instruction was held over until the release of the report of the Dairy Commission. ENGLISH VIEWPOINT In a letter published in “The Times” on June 11 Air. 11. B. Tennant set out the views of New Zealand farmers on the importation of purebred stock direct from this country to the Dominion, and the reasons why they are reluctant to see the embargo raised (states the agricultural writer of the London “Times )■ There is evidently a good deal of misunderstanding in New Zealand on the sultjeet of foot-and-mouth disease and the possibility of the infection being carried in live stock exported from this country. Air. Tennant says that New Zealand farmers “cannot be persuaded that the quarantine regulations either in Englnni or this Dominion would bo any bar to the admittance of a ‘carrier’ which might infect our stock.” He overlooks the fact that it has been, and continues to be. the consistent, policy of the Alinistry of Agriculture in all outbreaks of foot-and-mouth disease to slaughter all affected suscenable animals and others in contact with diseased stock. As there are therefor*no recovered animals to be released after the occurrence of an outbreak, there can be in Great Britain no threat to healthy stock through “carrier” animals, nor, incidentally, is the health of animals in any importing country endangered from tli.s cause. It may also be pointed out that Air. Tennant’s conclusion that animals in New Zealand are likely to be more susceptible to foot-and-mouth disease than animals in England because the latter, in his estimation, “from long contact with thedisease, must have built un considerable resistance to infection” is based on false premises. Specific immunity is derived from an attack of the disease, and as all affected animals are slaughtered, animals in Great Britain can be expected to have no greater resistance than those in anyother country where foot-and-mouth disease has not occurred for many years.