DAIRY FARMERS AND COSTS

Dominion, Volume 36, Issue 270, 10 August 1943, Page 4

DAIRY FARMERS AND COSTS

Recent Adjustment PROBLEM OF LABOUR SHORTAGE Dominion Special Service. AUCKLAND, August 9. Comments on the adjustment made by the Government iu an attempt to meet the increases in costs incurred by dairyfarmers since 1938 have been made by Mr A. J. Sinclair, secretary-manager of the Te Awiunutu Co-operative Dairy Company, Limited. Mr. W. A. Rushton. president of the Morrinsville branch of the Farmers’ Union, stated that many dairy-farmers were contending that the special payments did not enable them to pay competitive rates for labour, and it was on this point that he asked Mr. Sinclair to express an opinion. “The adjustment will give the dairyfarmer another Id. per lb. butterfat, as from August 1, 1943, and in my opinion it would never have been made but for the determined attitude adopted by the Waikato farmers not to stabilize on a 1938 price accompanied by 1943 costs,, said Mr., Sinclair “Mr. Rushton is correct in stating that in April, 1942, the Dairy Industry Council placed on recoi’l that an additional payment of 1.516 d. per lb. butterfat was required to bring the dairy-fanners’ costs into line with the Hon. W. Nash’s guaranteed price formula of 1938. The Government compromised with an offer of .Gid. per lb. as from August, 1942, and this was termed a ‘war cost allowance.’ “It should be noted how closely the adjustments made by the Government tally with the Dairy Industry Council s figure of 1.51 Gd.: War cost allowance from August 1, 1942, .Gid.; cost adjustment to dairy-farmers from August 1, 1943, ,767 d. and cost adjustment to butter factories from August 1. 1943, ,187 d. , This makes a total of 1.5G4d. Mr. Sinclair said it had been stated to him that the latest adjustment was not giving satisfaction to many dairyfarmers, because it did not enable them to pay competitive rates for farm labour. An instance was the case of an 18-year-old youth who left a dairy-farm for employment in a freezing works at £lO/18/- a week. Such a state of affairs could be solved only by two methods. The first was that wages paid by dairy-farmers should be increased to the levels ruling in the ancillary and secondary industries, and the second was that the wages in ancillary and secondary industries should be reduced to the levels paid on farms. “The first course is impracticable, because of the amount of subsidy to the dairy industry which would be involved,’ said Mr. Sinclair. “The second course is impossible, for reasons which can be clearly stated by any candidate at the approaching general election.” The dairy-farmer’s problem, therefore, was to maintain and, if possible, increase production in spite of the handicap which faced him in engaging suitable labour, the speaker continued. The Government promised that suitable grade 2 and 3 men would be released from camp for work on dairy farms. However, the dairyfanner could not wait and he was dealing with the problem in a manner which was only too well known. He was selling his cows or reducing his herd to a number which could be handled satisfactorily by family labour. , . , , “It is not too much to say that, had it not been for the help given in the past by the dairy-farmer’s family at very inadequate rates of remuneration, our industry would have collapsed,” Mr. Sinclair concluded. “I believe that help will still be forthcoming. Economically, it is wrong, but we have to win the war before many wrongs can be righted. My advice to the dairy-fanners in the Morrinsvihe district is to accept the adjustment and to produce every pound of butterfat they can in the season which is now opening.”