FARMING INCOME.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LIX, Issue 116, 17 April 1939, Page 6

FARMING INCOME.

LAST SEASON’S TOTAL. DROP OF THREE AND HALF MILLIONS. (By Telegraph.—Special to Standard.) WELLINGTON, April 17. The official estimate of gross farming income for New Zealand compiled by the Government Statistician places file total for the 1937-38 season at £67,800,000. which represents a drop compared with the previous season of £3.500,000. It is pointed out that the lower figures for the last season are accounted for by a decline of £4,600,000 in the income of the pastoral group and a fall of £300,000 in the agricultural group, which could not he made up by the increase of £1,400.000 in the dairying group. The farming income of last season was distributed under the following main headings:— Agricultural produce ... £6,900,000 Pastoral produce £32,000,000 Dairying, poultry and bees £28,900,000 A long-range comparison of the income position provides the reassuring information that, whereas the gross income for 1928-29 is expressed in the figure of 100, it now stands at 105, in vivid contrast with the index figure of 1932-33 which was 59, representing a gross farming income of £37,900,000. Though the volume of production declined last season by somewhat over two points, it is 6 points higher than in the slum]) year already cpioted. Except in the dairy group, all prices declined last season. Pastoral products fell by 13.8 per cent, and agricultural produce by 2.9 per cent, though dairy produce prices were 9.6 per cent, bettor than in the preceding season.