FARMERS BETTER OFF

Evening Star, Issue 22193, 22 November 1935, Page 14

FARMERS BETTER OFF

INTERESTING FIGURES At the New Zealand Manufacturers’ Conference in Wellington yesterday, the newly-elected Dominion president, Mr D. Henry, said that an interesting point was disclosed by' the recent Budget statement where was given a comparison of index figures in connection with farmers’ expenditure and income. Taking the year 1929 at index-figure 100, it was officially stated that by 1934 the relative figures had become: — Farm costs, 70; prices, 60; volume of production, 126; farm income, 76. This meant that, taking the farming industry as a whole, farming costs had been reduced to 70 per cent, of their pre-slump level. True, the prices realised for farm produce had declined even farther (down to GO per cent.); but this had been more than compensated by the increase in the volume of production (126 per cent.). In the upshot, the costs of farming were down to 70 per cent., while the gross income from farming was down only to 76 per cent, of what each had been before the slump. Thus it appeared vthat the farmers, as a whole, were actually better off in 1934 than they were in 1929.