MILK FOR TOWN SUPPLY

Dominion, Volume 35, Issue 190, 11 May 1942, Page 2

MILK FOR TOWN SUPPLY

Return To Producer NEED FOR INCREASE STRESSED Now that the Government had granted a war cost allowance to ordinary dairy-farmers, it was to be hoped that the gross injustice under which farmers who supplied milk to some of the towns in the Dominion were suffering would be rectified, said the Dominion secretary of the New Zealand Farmers’ Union, Mr. A. P. O’Shea, yesterday. They had been disgracefully treated, he said. With prices stabilized at the 1939 level, farmers in some districts, notably Otago, were selling their mjlk at below cost of production, and consumers were getting an unfair advantage, There was as yet no provision to pass on to the milk suppliers the allowances for war costs granted to other sections of the community. It was interesting to contrast the treatment they had received with that given producers of beer. The Government knew the position and it was high time it took action to rectify the injustice. In some districts milk production for town supply had become hopelessly uneconomic, said Mr. O’Shea. As a result, small quantities of milk were collected over widespread areas and temporary licences for town supply had even been granted to some producers whose buildings were not up to the necessary health 'standard. “It is flirting with danger,” said Mr. O’Shea. “I would not be surprised if we had an epidemic one of these days because of the low-quality milk which is often used because nothing else is available. If that happens we will have asked for it in not giving the producers a fair deal. The solution is for the Government to make it economic for a man to produce winter milk.” Mr. O’Shea also said that the present method of collecting small quantities of milk over a wide district involved serious waste of transport—petrol, tyres and manpower.