AGRICULTURAL SCIENCE

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume XXII, Issue 269, 28 October 1932, Page 10

AGRICULTURAL SCIENCE

ITS ECONOMIC VALUE. GOVERNOR-GENERAL’S ADDRESS. An address on “The Economic Value of Agricultural Science” was given by the Governor-General, Lord Bledisloe, before the Wellington Philosophical Society bn Wednesday evening. “In no field of human activity is the economic value of science so grudgingly acknowledged as in that of husbandry, and yet in none has it been more abundant or more easy to demonstrate to those who have but the vision to realthe truth,” said Lord Bledisloe. “Emperical methods may have sufficed in the past to ensure a livelihood for the farmer of average capacity and commonsense. However, with the insistent demands on the part of the pampered consumer for ever higher standards of quality and uniformity, with the claim of the worker for a higher scale of living, and with a heavier dead-weight load of public burdens, nothing but scientific knowledge, at least, improved methods based upon such knowledge, will enable the primary producer so to reduce his production costs and enhance the quality and uniformity of his products as to ensure their absorption, with profit to himself, in a crowded world market which holds out a poor reward to those whose methods are antiquated and who are disinclined to modify them in the light of modern scientific discovery. VICTORY IN COMPETITION. “It is safe to prophesy/’ said His Excellency, “that whatever alleviation on transient economic distresses, aggravated by world poverty and consequent under-consumption, may be effected by international fiscal adjustments and preferences the victory in the inevitably fierce competition between the world’s primary producers will rest ultimately with those countries peopled by intelligent and energetic races which recognise the economic value of scientific research and apply its findings without undue delay to the winning of wealth from the soil. But if this is to be the policy of Batons and of their rulers it is essential for scientists, however distasteful the task may be. to prove to the farming community the value of their discoveries in pounds, shillings and pence.” Lord Bledisloe said that with the more complete collaboration of scientists with one another, as-, well as with the rural practitioner, than in the past no justification could be found for decrying the economic value of agricultural science or, subject only to over-riding national necessity, for the improvident starvation of scientific research of proved commercial benefit to the countryside. STEADY COMMERCIAL GAIN. “Any attempt to assess in terms of money the steady and continuous commercial gain with which science i sentiching the farming community, and through them the whole body politic, would, of necessity, be lacking in precision, comprehensiveness or finality,” said Lord Bledisloe, in proceeding to indicate by illustratons the scope and magnitude of the debt which the farmer owes to the scientist. He did so, he said, in the hope that a slight glimpse at achieved results might afford food for serious thought to those who questioned the value of the national investment represented by the subsidised activities of the latter. “No nation which seeks to sell its primary products in competitive markets can afford to ignore the economic value of agricultural science,” said His Excellency, in conclusion. “Its promotion involves some public expenditure, but if its activities be properly organised and directed with discrimination and foresight, such expenditure should prove a most remunerative investment, and result in an immeasurable increase of national wealth.”