SMALL FARM SCHEME

Evening Post, Issue 82, 6 April 1936, Page 11

SMALL FARM SCHEME

MINISTER'S STATEMENT

DEVELOPMENT WORK

The small farm scheme of land development was the subject of reference by the Minister of Lands (the Hon. F. Langstone) in an interview at the weekend.

"The advance of the operations of the small farms scheme," said the Minister, "is demonstrating what can be accomplished with proper organisation of labour under supervision and direction. The objects of the scheme are three fold: 1. The utilisation of unemployed labour. '2. The salvaging of securities subject to mortgage from State Departments, which securities ' the fall in prices had made uneconomic, and 3. The demonstration of what can be accomplished on relatively inferior lands by adopting modern methods. MAKING LAND PRODUCTIVE. "It must be remembered that but fo* the fact that the assistance of the unemployment'funds is being granted as free money, it would not be possible to carry out this development work. The point is that the expenditure of this money in rehabilitating and developing land is not loaded on to the sections being developed. Of course, money voted out of the Small Farms Board's account for permanent improvements such as erecting dwellings and cowsheds, fencing, grassing, implements, stocking, fertilising, etc., are calculated as improvements and are charged up to the cost of land development, but the wages are paid out of unemployment funds and, as I have said, are not loaded on to the land. It is this fact that makes it possible to bring marginal and deteriorated lands into a state of productivity. "I have stated on previous occasions that the major question in connection with the great farming industry is to keep the farmer on his land. As I see it, the questions of land settlement and farm production are inseparably linked. Settling men on the land at cheap rates cannot help the position when the majority of farmers are struggling to overcome difficulties arising from high land values. I am not opposed to cheap settlement—indeed, I welcome it—but the future of the farming industry makes it imperative that we should consider both sides of the question." ..'.... SCIENTIFIC METHODS. The Minister added that a fair volume of work was now proceeding in the salvaging of abandoned farm.lands and bringing theni back into reasonably intensive cultivation. However, a .possible line of future policy would be the concentration of farming development close to existing lines of transport without opening up land in the very remote districts. With the adoption of scientific methods it would not be difficult to put more men. on; land which at present was not being made to yield its full value. The Government was taking a comprehensive view of the whole situation, Mr. Langstone said. The guaranteedprice scheme would be extended in due course to cover all farm production, but the production itself would be planned so that a proper balance would be maintained between primary and secondary industry. Land settlement would not be made'an absolute goal in itself, but would be made to take its proper place in a new order for the benefit of all sections of the community.