HIGH FARMING INCOME

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXVIII, Issue 23997, 21 June 1941, Page 10

HIGH FARMING INCOME

NEW RECORD REACHED

ESTIMATED TOTAL £73,500,000 Estimates of the gross farming income of New Zealand for the 1939-40 production season now published in the Abstract of Statistics give the highest total yet recorded for ail farm produce. The figure of £73,500,000 is £6.200,000, or 9 per cent, higher than that of the previous year, and £2,100,000, or 2.9 per cent, above the previous record level reached in 1936-37.

The gross farming income is derived under three main headings—agricultural produce, pastoral produce and produce of dairying, poultry and bees. In each of these divisions there is an advance on the figures for the previous year. Agricultural and dairy produce have set a record, but the total for the pastoral group is 12 per cent below the record year, 1936-37, which was characterised by particularly high wool prices. The increase in the agricultural group was brought about mainly br a substantial increase in the wheat crop, the total yield being 44 per cent higher, with prices the same. The potato yield showed an increase of as much as 60 per cent over the previous year, hut low prices resulted in the return for this crop being actually less. In the pastoral group higher wool prices vrere mainly responsible for the increase, while in the dairying.group an increase in production was the principal contributing fnctot.