Nelson Evewning Mail MONDAY. APRIL 17, 1944 TARGETS FOR THE FARM FRONT

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume 79, 17 April 1944, Page 4

Nelson Evewning Mail MONDAY. APRIL 17, 1944 TARGETS FOR THE FARM FRONT

ANNOUNCEMENT ol the coming season’s targets lor those primary products most needed from New Zealand for war purposes, should prove very helpful to farmers. The arrangement made for dairy production was only one section of the complete over-all picture which has now been presented in a well-marshalled : summary showing what has been done in the season just closing and what is required during the next ; year. In practically all cases higher , targets are set. Extra manpower is to be released to help attain them, which is another confirmation that the farm front ranks near the top if not at the head of this Dominion’s contribution to total war. The broad picture will be given a more specialised meaning when the objectives for the various districts are made public. Tillers of the soil should then have something definite to work ojri instead of going along without any clear conception of just what commodities they 'ought to grow to render the maximum help. Where land is suitable it rests with the farmer to use it accordingly. Even then the decision cannot always be clean-cut because there are wide alternatives, each of which is on the urgent list. Those, however, will be narrowed when the regional wartime primary production plans for Nelson and the other districts are forthcoming. Behind the national figures given lies a good deal of work in estimating relative needs. A few of them may appear to have been fixed somewhat arbitrarily on the basis of a proportionate increase on last season’s output. Within the schedule itself are priorities, none of which stands higher than butter, cheese and meat to help maintain the food rations of Britain. With meat the emphasis is on weight rather than on quality. Another feature is that New Zealand herself is not self-sup-porting in wheat and other human and food slocks. To encourage winter feed for pigs a subsidy of £5 an acre on certain crops is to be paid. Then there is the acute shortage of feed barley and maize. The target for feed barley is set at 40,000 acres, for a big slice of which the North Island is being relied upon. It is probable that Nelson could also help in this. Grain for feed purposes grown in the district has not met local demand, a scarcity which has been reflected in pig-raising and the falling away of egg production. Some of the objectives are set so high that they are unlikely to be reached, but a target is rightly regarded as something to aim at though the bulls-eye may not be always hit. If labour, materials and machinery are available in sufficient quantities, the onus of producing the goods still lies with the individual farmer. Generally speaking, he works to a plan which isf his own, depending on the suitability of his soil, rotation of crops and the class of production which he thinks will be most profitable. In a national wartime scheme he has an additional duty to try to grow those commodities which are being asked for even though this conflicts—as it often will —with his own notions about the coming season’s programme. Throughout New Zealand lately there has been an insistent call for definition of targets, with an expression of willingness to aim at them when they are named with precision. This has been done on a national basis and the Government should lose no time in making the regional objectives known. Bearing in mind that this is a campaign being fought on the farming front, the producer, like the good soldier, will need to bend his efforts towards winning through to the objectives which are being set.