THE PRICE OF MILK

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21291, 19 September 1932, Page 12

THE PRICE OF MILK

Sir,—Your correspondents on the prior of milk are short of facts from the farmers' point of view. For a start j| farmer going on to town supply has f« get a licence for his shed whicp often entails expensive alterations to com# into line with the regulations, about thre« sets of milk-cans, a cooler and an abundant supply of water. All these ara aljove the butter supplier requirements* Then he has to take a contract to supply a given quantity of milk all the yea* round, which in my case I get s£d a gallon for. All surplus milk I get 3£d for, which in the flush months is nearly as much as the contract. Now above all this the town supplier has to milk all the winter. Thij means cows coming in out of season, that extra hand-feeding, besides having his whole farm cut to pieces with the cows tramping from one paddock to another. The butter farmer usually has the most of his cows dry in the winter and confined to about half the farm, while the other half is being saved for the time when tha cows come into profit. A town supplier needs 20 or 30 per cent more cows than a butter farmer for the same production for 12 months. In my opinion the town milk farmer requires 50 per cent higher prices than the butter farmer to be on[ equal terms at the end of the year. Town Supplier.