IMPROVING BUTTER

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXII, Issue 22076, 4 April 1935, Page 15

IMPROVING BUTTER

<j; r —I think most farmers will agree' with "Efficiency" that second-grade cream should be eliminated from the manufacture of export butter. His remarks re pastures in which he insinuate* that dairv cows are fed on gorse, blackberry and ragwort, a deadly poisonous plant, will make farmers smile: but when he asserts that All our troubles begin on the farm and end there," it is time for dairy fanners to sit up and protest strongly. When our cream does not merit a superfine grade we are penalised one halfpenny per lb., receiving less for its butter-fat content, and graded "first," and when the grade does not warrant a classification of "first" we are graded "second, and lose a penny per lb., which is as it should be, I admit. But why should dairv farmers be put to all this trouble and singled out for abuse by factory managers who wish to minimise their own shortcomings, and oversea agents, who for obvious reasons wish to keep down the price of New Zealand butter, while the glaring fact remains that the various grades of cream are mixed at the factories before churning, and the farmers' efforts to make a better article are thus made abortive. The Dairy Division and the Government must certainlv have known of this fact years ago, yet the Dairy Commission recently set up by the Government thought the easiest and most convenient way out was to shunt all the blame on to the dairy farmers. Anti-Humbug.