Auckland Sets Supreme Standard in New Zealand Dairying

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXX, Issue 21647, 13 November 1933, Page 22 (Supplement)

Auckland Sets Supreme Standard in New Zealand Dairying

[UTTKIM'WT is the supreme factor in I production in the Auckland Province. J Millions of pounds of it are turned off J northern farms each year and hiinj dreds of thousands of pounds sterling I are received by the producers of it each month. The returns from 110 other branch of fanning can compare with the income from dairying. Climate, soil and tlio energy and initiative of the individual have worked in splendid liaison to produce this result. The combination has done more, however, than establish a provincial leadership for the industry. It has placed Auckland in an unassailable position as the pre-eminent butter-fat province in the Dominion. No more remarkable contrast between present achievement and past, opinion could be had than that supplied by the history of dairying effort in the North. For it has not always been Auckland's privilege to boast of high accomplishment in butter-fat production. There was a time when any idea that the province was destined to excel in dairying was received with ridicule, if it was accepted at all. The outlook had become so bounded by the prior importance ol the kauri gum, timber and gold-mining industries that developments divorced from any of these were regarded as being altogether chimerical. The habit ot looking to the exploitation of inherent soil fertility was not then particularly apparent, and little cognisance was taken of the potential profit awaiting development in the farmahle lands of the province. In the early years of the century a pasture was accounted fair when it carried a sheep to an acre and n-half. A cow to an acre is the accomplished ideal in many parts of the province to-day. As Auckland's triple heritage of a rich soil, n magnificent climate and an abundant rainfall came to be recognised at its true productive worth there set in the gradual development of an industry destined to progress at a rate and to a degree far beyond the wildest expectations of even post-pioneer generations. The human element has played a most important part in that progress. For the consistent expansion of production figures during the whole

a Dominion total for the 19J12-JM season of approximately H26,000,0(M)II). On the basis of an average payment of 9}d a ll>., last, year's output was worth approximately L7,11t0 the Auckland farming community, it lias l>cen worth a larger sum under more stable market conditions in previous seasons. With an average

of the presort t. con fury lins been <luo to an individual initiative w Inch lias riot only kept the province abreast of modern eusioni.s in husbandry hut has latterly won it the distinction of being the pionei»r in all movements for the benefit of the industry as a whole, and for the acceleration and cheapening of production. The unsurpassed conditions of soil and climate have provided an admirable incentive and the energy ami determination of the producer have translated the advantage in terms of vast monetary gain. The vigorous prosecution of a genial aptitude for production in the Waikato has given a great impetus to progress, but the latest fillip has eomo from the remarkable expansion of the industry in the North Auckland district.

/N the last 60 years Auckland's dairying | income has increased from hundreds to millions of pounds. Butter and cheese exports j were valued at £604 in 1573, at £20,380 in j ISB3, and at £45,546 in 1593. Ten years later the figure was £196,116. The income to-day j is 36 times greater than it was 30 years ago, j the export value for the year ended July 31 j last being estimated at £7,116,000.

.Annual increases of tens of millions of pounds of butter-fat have become the common experience in the province. .lust how impressive Northern dairying effort lias been can be gauged from the fact that ono company alone, the New Zealand Co-operativo Dairy Company, Limited, has achieved the record of making more produce in a year than the whole of Taranaki. In 1929-30 this concern's output, on a cheese basis, exceeded the quantity of prod lice received at the New Plymouth and Pa tea grading stores by 15,000 tons. The gross turnover was more than £5,000,000, lor that •was a year in which prices were much better than they are to-day. Even more inspiring aspects of the industry nre revealed, however, when the provincial viewpoint is taken. The dairy cows in the two Auckland districts to-day number just on 900,000, only 39,500 short of half the number in the whole of the Dominion. Output is on a commensurate scale. The production of buttcrfat in the province for the year ended July 31 last amounted to 151.7*10,0001b., compared with

FARMERS' MAGNIFICENT

payment of Is 3d a lb. in 1 lie 1929-30 season, 50,000,0001b. less butter-fat than tliat produced last season brought in the sum of a(>proximately £8,080,000, while in 3928-29 the income from 110,285,0001b. of butter-fat, at an average of about Is 4J<l a lb. amounted to approximately £7,097,000.

But butter-fat values and aggregate returns tell only part of tlie story. To see the province's progress in its full magnitude requires ;i survey from the viewpoint of per unit output. Herdtesting provides the first point of approach. Auckland put this movement on its first practical footing in the Dominion. The original method in vogue in New Zealand was that carried out by the farmer with a small testing outfit. Then came what is known as the individual system, instituted by the Department of Agriculture in 1!)09, under which the farmer took the milk samples and forwarded them to a factory for testing. Such a procedure, however, though 'letter than none at all, was considered by progressive men to lack the accuracy and dependability essential to any efficient scheme of herd improvement and ultimately the group method of testing which now embraces the whole of the country under the aegis of the Dominion Herd-Test-ing Federation was introduced. The New Zealand Farmers' Union Herd-Testing Association first carried out group testing in the season, at the end of which the present .New Zealand Co-operative Herd-Testing Association, having its headquarters in the great dairying belt of the Waikato, was formed to take over the responsibility. The system it sponsors ensures that weights and samples are taken by a disinti restod testing officer; provision is made for the identification of tested cows; and encouragement is given the use of proved pedigree sin , bv marking their female progeny from highproducing Jams. Testing on these lines has proved its great worth over a decade of practical application. The " dud " cow has been revealed and it has been shown repeatedly that the farmer can reduce the number of cows milked and yet increase the yield of butterfat. Thirty-one thousand cows tested by the association in the 1 D2.J-24 season gave an average of 207. HI lb. of fat in 2H7 days. Last season the association tested 111.007 cows for an average of 25.3,261 lb. of fat in 2fj(s days, so that the march toward the ideal of a .'soolb. average seems to have been well started. A factor of even greater importance in the economics of dairying has been the contemporary increase in the returns of butter-fat per acre of land fanned. While testing has identified the unprofitable producer, top-dressing—pur-sued nowhere more vigorously than in the Auckland Province —combined with modern methods of management in respect of both herds and pastures, has ensured appropriate conditions for maximum production performances.

Intensive subdivision of holdings, rotational for the adequate control of growth and efficient utilisation at the most nutritious stage, conservation of surplus supplies for use in the lean periods of the year, and balanced manuring are features of the modern conception which find their most perfect expression in Auckland's dairying practice. The benefit is graphically illustrated by per acre returns. Even the most optimistic estimates do not place the average of the Dominion's output at much above 801b. of butterfat ail acre. In the Auckland Province 1.501b. an acre is not altogether an uncommon figure; in some cases 2001b. an acre is a regular level, while on the farms on which modern principles have been most successfully instituted production has been stabilised at from 2oolb. to as high as 2801b. an acre. A realisation that the greater the output per unit of land employed the cheaper the

'/' HE Auckland Province supplies more than half the quantity of dairy prodace exported annually from New Zealand. A total of 4£66,459 boxes of batter and 1,405,025 crates of cheese was sent from the Dominion in 1932-33. Auckland's contribution was [ boxes, or 67 per cent of the butter, and j 287,030 crates, or 20 per cent of the cheese.

cost of production becomes lias been the inspiration for this latest trend in development in the province. It lias set a standard of achievement unequalled so far by dairymen in any other part of the country. More important still, its significant relationship with cost and profit justifies a confident contemplation of an economically stable industry in the future. To this must be added the further inclination, now taking definite shape in the plans of the northern dairyman, to exploit a beneficent climate more fully by spreading production over a longer period of the year, with its logical sequel of all-the-year operations. Autumn calving and adjustments in the fertilising scheme have already paved the way to highly-practical results on many farms. Its chief influence is exerted on marketing problems, especially in regard to the even distribution of exports throughout the whole of the season, a fact which commends it to an increasing number of farmer* each year.