The NORTHLAND FARMER

Northern Advocate, 29 July 1939, Page 2 (Supplement)

The NORTHLAND FARMER

Written By W. A. Beattie

A pa ge prepared for the purpose of helping the Northland farmer to make the utmost use of the remarkable advantages which Nature* has bestowed on Northland, and thereby to develop the most fertile territory in New Zealand.

The position of the sheep farmer is not a very stable one at present. With over a quarter of a million carcases in store held back under the quota, with substitutes for wool appearing and so on, sheep farmers must be somewhat worried at their prospects. Furthermore, much land that was formerly used for grazing sheep is going back, the fertility having been worked out and the land being too steep to top dress economically. The commission that is at present sitting will certainly have many problems that will tax their ingenuity to solve. There are, moreover, problems of marketing that are not very satisfactory, such as the lack of a differential price for the highest grade lambs. ■ While natural wool is still superior in many ways to any artificial fibre made, 'Will this state of affairs continue? A problem that is even greater perhaps •is, Can an entirely suitable substitute, for wool be made using only low grade wools to blend with the artificial fibre. If so, then the outlook for good wool is bad, and it would not pay ■ farmers to grow the wool if they only obtained the price of the lowest grades. - '

It has recently been suggested that a levy may be made on all sheep to cover losses due to the holding of wether and ewe mutton under the quota, and so spread the incidence of - what ,is undoubtedly an evil. It has • further been suggested that the extra ;; mutton might be offered to Britain to hold in cool storage there to tide over a national emergency. Both these suggestions are mere palliatives as will i be realised and the position of further r stocks of mutton accumulating in the . corning and subsequent seasons has to .. be reckoned with. The wretched part . of the whole thing is that there are so many people in the world that are not properly fed and that need that mutton, yet they have not the purchasing ,: power to buy, and it has therefore ... to be denied them. Even in Britain ft has recently been reported in no less a journal than the Abstracts of Animal Nutrition, issued ■ by the Imperial Bureau of Animal Nutrition that the people of the homeland are not properly fed, yet the ~ meat has to be withheld from them. Human intelligence has solved manj' - problems. We have mastered the air, we have brought electricity into subjection and applied it to many uses, we - have done wonders in many fields, but we have not yet solved the greatest problem or all, feeding and looking after humanity Itself.

Dictatorship, democracies and so on are all probably evidence of a struggle going on in tire human mind in the endeavour to solve the greatest of puzzles, human nature. Can we take this step and that step without the risk o'f men taking advantage of it to do less, to prey on others, and so to wreck all attempts to assist them. The meat quota is just another aspect of a very old and very difficult proolem. If we give the moat away, people will expect in future to get it for nothing, we will discourage effort, we will breed parasites and so on. What can we do? Beyond bartering the meat with other countries that can offer us something in exchange, what can we do? It may well be that the quota applied to meat will later affect butter and oher products, and we are in S quandary about the whole matter.

The local market is always the best market, but the development of secondary industries and the increase of population are not things that happen overnight, and there is therefore a ticklish position to face in the meantime. The root problem unsolved, palliatives are probably the only alternative at present.

There is a market for meat meal overseas, but in the cost of a ton of meat meal, the main items are manufacturing costs, and the raw material has to be obtained at the price of offal. There is thus not much outlet there. The position is not pleasant to contemplate.

The prudent farmer will concentrate on the production of early lambs. The quotas will be applied to lambs only as a last resort, as our reputation for lamb is established, and it would be very unwise to do anything that would militate against the continuation or that prestige.

To produce early lambs, warm well sheltered country is required and also country that is fertile and well top dressed so that the ewes will have ample feed and the lambs will go away fat off their mothers. If that is true, then much of the land at present being used will have to go out of commission. All over the North there are areas that bear such poor and sparse pasture, that are reverting to fern and ti-tree, that are too steep and inaccessible to top dress, and sooner or later the question of reafforesting this land will have to be taken into account. There are many farmers on this class of land that are making so bare a living that it would pay to take

Position Of Sheep Farming

over the land and shift thorn on to better class farms where they would have some hope of making something and living in reasonable comfort.

With this land ruled out, more concentrated effort can be made on the more fertile land that is left. This would mean a temporary reduction in flocks, and a consequent easing of the position. It seems that when quotas are being applied is the ideal opportunity for bringing this about The transport board will not allow a carrier to carry on an uneconomical business as it is not in his interests or those of the community that he should do so. Neither is it economic to permit farmers to carry on on land that can never bring more than the bar.est subsistence. Some policy must bo evolved by the Government to bring about this closing up of land that can under modern conditions not bo made to give satisfactory returns. Later, when our population grows and onr secondary industries expand, the production from the better class of land will so have increased that there will be a market for it.

There is so much good land that is only being partly worked, that it seems idle to worry about the poorer classes of land.

Sheep Farming Specialised

As quotas are always applied against the lower qualities of product, sheep farming must tend to become more and more specialised. In the matter of .garcases, the producer must become more and more particular about quality, and he can' only do this by breeding the right type of sheep and by feeding it well. The day when any land would do for sheep has passed. Good siibep' can quickly deteriorate on poor land. The fertility of land always determined whether the animal will maintain its high condition or will gradually revert to a more primitive type. Stock is never static. Either it improves or it goes back. Poor feeding, almost more than anything else can cause stock of all species to revert. For the production of high, quality lambs it is therefore necessary to have them on the very best type of pasture. A quick growing lamb is required, as the younger the animal, the more tender the meat, and ,also, the more economical as a rule has it been to grow.

Sheep, beef, pigs are all the same. It is the young quick-grown animal that is required by the best market, and the older the animal the less is the demand for the carcase.

Sheep need dry country. The incidence of foot rot and so on is too great on heavy wet land The sheep after all is a mountain animal, and it has never adapted itself to wet, low-lying land. Whether or not it is economical to handle sheep instead of cows on pny given piece of land is a matter for individual judgment. The price of the land, the available labour and the distance from markets are all matters to be taken into account.

There is quite a good deal of land in the North that is carrying dairy herds that would be better devoted to sheep. One has been on many farms where the production of the dairy herd is so low that when everything is taken into account, the dairying account cannot pay properly, whereas sheep might well make a good return. The whole position of the sheep farmer is fraught with many difficulties and many uncertainties, and the task set before the commission that is sitting is an unenviable and arduous one. One can only express the hope float those who have the detailed knowledge of the industry will put their evidence before the commission in the clearest and most forceful way, and that some way will be found out of a position that threatens to develop into an impasse if it is not tackled resolutely and with tact, determination and understanding.