EDUCATIONAL FILMS

Evening Star, Issue 23021, 28 July 1938, Page 6

EDUCATIONAL FILMS

INSTRUCTION FOR FARMERS A series of interesting educational films were screened to an attentive audience by the Department of Agriculture in the Chief Post Office Building last evening. As a means of furthering the advisory work of the Fields Division the department intends to purchase a miniher of talkie film machines so that the man on the land may have visual and instructive light thrown upon the many problems that are his. Mr R. B. Tennent, the director of the Fields Division of the department, in an interesting address, set forth the aims of Ids department. The films screened, while only one touched upon agriculture or stock breeding, demonstrated how the department hopes to reach the farmer. The Department of Agriculture was doing an in valuable service for the country, Mr Tennent said, and some 20,000 personal calls upon farmers were made last year, while the correspondence dealing, with farmers’ troubles was voluminous. There were many highly skilled men in the Dominion, he said, but they could not travel all over the country imparting their knowledge to the farmer. That was the purpose cf the talking film—to visually and orally record some of the knowledge of these men and pass it on to the man on the land. The New Zealand farmer was the best grass land farmer in the world, Mr Tennent stated, and the department for that reason alone had to be sure of what it did. Departmental officers were not sent out to talk to or instruct ignorant men. There is a conference of Fields Division men being held in Dunedin at the moment, and these, together with executives from numerous city businesses, mostly dealing with stock and agriculture, formed the bulk of those present. Mr Tennent told his audience that Mr Lee Martin, the Minister of Agriculture, was very keen on the talking picture as a method of broadcasting knowledge to the fanner. It was largely due to him that the department was going ahead with the films, he said.

The Government’s film studio at Miramar, Wellington, was co-operating with the department in this respect.