YIELD FROM COWS

Evening Post, Volume CXXXI, Issue 11, 14 January 1941, Page 5

YIELD FROM COWS

INFORMATION REQUIRED

On January 16 all dairy farmers throughout the Dominion are being asked by the Dairy, Board to supply the number of cows actually milked in their herds on the evening of January 15. The scheme is part of the board's herd improvement plan, now in its second year of operation. "The chief object of this collection of data," states the secretary to the board, Mr. C. H. Courtney, "is to arrive at a thoroughly practical basis for assessing the average production per cow for the Dominion, and to do this it is necessary to know the number of cows actually milked on January 15 on all dairy farms. Then from data collected from the 5000 herds under group herd test it is intended to convert this number of cows to the average number which would be carried on dairy farms throughout the season. Thi3 naturally means that the final figure used for the average number of cows carried on dairy farms throughout the season will be greater than the number of cows milked in January, but the exact proportion will not be known until the data from the 5000 herds under group test have been analysed. When" the final production figures have been calculated on this new basis, not only will the dairy farmer have district figures of production for the whole Dominion, but the average per cow production figure will be much more closely related to his practical ■farming conditions.

"Some dairy farmers think "that this information might be used by Government Departments to check individual farmers' returns. The Dairy Board has indicated that individual returns will be treated as strictly confidential to the dairy farmers concerned, and steps have been taken to ensure that names of suppliers are not disclosed when the information is passed on by the dairy Cactory secretary."