City Milk Suppliers

Dominion, Volume 29, Issue 204, 26 May 1936, Page 11

City Milk Suppliers

Sir, —Could y#U or any of your reader.enlighten bewildered farmers about the basis of payment for milk supplied to the city? For autumn milk we were paid a little over 7d. per gallon and there was no surplus, all the milk going into tincity milk supply. Now winter is here we produce much less milk at twice the cost to farmers, yet receive 1/- per gallon for about one-third called “guarantee” and 4 Id. per gallon for two -thirds called “surplus.” 1 am told we might get a bonus <i£ Id. per gallon on this surplus milk, but even 51d. per gallon for winter milk, which costs the farmer at least 9<1., seems outrageous. I asked two directors (both farmers) and tlie secretary of the Dairy Farmers’ Association for an explanation. I got it —each different. I admit being a bit hazy before, but it was nothing to the fog they left me in. Their accumulated answers were something like this: “In the autumn there is a lot of milk all used by Ilie city milk department, but no surplus. In the winter there is not enough milk, so there is a big surplus. In the summer we pay you for your milk, but in the winter we pay someone else who does not supply any.”

Having been enlightened so far, I asked about the 2 Ml. per gallon in lieu of by-produets (skimmed milk to feed the calves) which we lose. “Oh I that is paid to the people who do not supply milk for tlie calves they don’t rear.” The Americans who were paid not to grow hogs have nothing on this. Can you or any of your readers enlighten us on these matters? Why do we receive less for milk in the winter when it is scarce than in the summer when it is plentiful? Why is two-thirds of our milk called “surplus” and paid for at 4Jd. per gallon when there is no surplus? Why does my neighbour get 1/- per gallon for all his milk and I 1/- for one-third only and 4jd. for the other two-thirds? The milk is the same quality taken by the same lorry and emptied into the same vat at the city milk supply. Why does the milk for which we arc paid 44d. per gallon cost the consumer 2/- when there is two-thirds surplus? Can you explain how I can become one of those people who milk dry cows and get paid for the miik they don’t supply, and, again, how I can get that extra 2jd. per gallon to feed the calves I do not rear? This may all seem very confusing, but it is not half as confused as I am.—l am, etc., MILK SUPPLIER. Wellington, May 23.

[A copy of the above letter was referred to the Wellington niunieipal milk department, when Mr. K. Herron (general manager) stated that the particular quandary in which “Milk Supplier” appeared to be was scarcely the concern of the milk department. The department had a definite agreement with the Wellington Dairy Farmers’ Association, and it was the association which made the conditions with the farmers about quantities, guarantees and surpluses. “Milk Supplier” should write to his own association (assuming he is a supplier to the association) for an elucidation of the points in doubt-1