Colonial Empire’s Problems

Northern Advocate, 27 July 1938, Page 2

Colonial Empire’s Problems

(Received 10 a.m.) RUGBY, July 25. Soil erosion and nutrition are two of the most important subjects to be discussed at the conference of colon-' ial directors on agriculture, which was opened in London today. There are representatives from all parts of the colonial empire. The Marquess of Duflerin and Ava, in his presidential address, expressed the hope that the consideration of these two subjects by officers of the agricultural, veterinary and forestry departments would be fruitful. He declared that ’in recent years it had been generally realised throughout the colonial empire that in the planning and execution of programmes of social and economic development, co-oper-ation and collaboration between the departments concerned was essential, and from the Colonial Office efforts had been made whenever possible to stress the importance of collaboration in all matters concerned with rural developments. The position in regard to soil erosion in the colonial empire had been reviewed in a memorandum sent to all dependencies, and the Colonial Secretary, Mr Malcolm MacDonald, had asked for an annual report cn the subject from each dependency, with a summary of the progress made in ant:erosion measures. It was expected that in the discussions of the conference, the importance of mixed farming, whereby animal husbandry was introduced into the scheme of crop production, would be recognised. The Parliamentary Secretary for Agriculture, the Earl of Feversham, said that increasing attention must be given by departments of agriculture to the production of greater amounts of, and greater variety in, local foodstuffs, and in this connection nutritional requirements must not be overlooked.