FARM PROBLEMS

New Zealand Herald, Volume 80, Issue 24749, 24 November 1943, Page 5

FARM PROBLEMS

DIFFICULT OUTLOOK SENSE OF FRUSTRATION '(fi.R.) HAMILTON, Tuesday With the farm lands throughout the great dairying district of the Waikato green and healthy under their springtime growth it is difficult to believe that 6e rious problems of production are facing the industry. But inquiry reveals many questions awaiting solution which iu their combined effect are causing a loss ol" progress that can be regained only by well-planned organisation and a general restoration of confidence. Farmers are mindful that theirs will be one of the most important phases of post-war industry, and that given sane, practical government to handle their problems in a workmanlike manner agricultural expansion can go hand in hand Trith industrial progress. If not, nothing but an unbalanced economy can result. Manpower problems, it is* realised, are temporary, hut decline in stock population and the lack of fertiliser are likely to have more permanent effects unless corrective measures are immediately applied. Incentive Destroyed "The roots of the present troubles lie jn the fact that the farmer, in relation to the rest of the community, lias become devitalised," said a prominent Waikato farmer when discussing the ■unfavourable trend in production, it lad taken 45 years of hard work, he said, to build up the Waikato to the 6tate of intense production it had reached, but the remarkable vitality witb which the' farmer had previously built was giving place to a sense of frustration. Family labour and fertiliser difficulties, while important, were only attendant problems. In the past the farmer had worked to provide for himself a good livelihood and to give his children education advantages equal to those of other sections of the community, but now that incentive was being destroyed. Every excess resulting from the farmer's work was being pruned for the advantage of the rest of the community and the farmer was being left with insufficient surplus to meet economically the natural reverses so frequent and so inherent to the farming business. Need of Reserves An instance was quoted of a farmer who was called upon to pay £SOO in cash for taxation on his operations. Almost immediately his herd was stricken with a fatal malady resulting from a defect in his hay. As a result 26 of bis best dairy cows died, and to maintain his capacity to produce he was to raise money at interest while the State absorbed his total cash reserve.

A less stable man could have carried on only at a reduced rate of production until_ he could have built up his herd again over a period of time. Unless the industry was permitted to create such reserves against emergencies it must go back. It was the accumulation of these protective reserves, the basis of every sound business, that had enabled the old-time farmer, and with him the industry and country generally, to make such good progress in the past. . Not Master of Pate Again, the farmer complains that he is no longer master of his fate. He is dictated to from above, frequently by less practical men. "It is like the Army now," said one man. "There is somebody up top to do the thinking for us. "We are just told what we are to do and how much we are to get. Much of that will soon kill the enterprise of the old-time school of farmers." No longer is the industry being returned all the money its produce brings and this is one of the chief complaints. While the Government is holding back moneys received for butter and a lot more for cheese, it maintains a policy of keeping the farmer in ignorance of its plans. Once he had access to his board of directors, who told him of his markets and his prospects, but to-day his directors cannot help him. Meantime, costs have risen tremendously and the industry is paying unheard of prices for essential items, while its returns are pegged down to only a little bettor than pre-war levels. While the rest of the community has kept pace with rising costs, the farmer has been left to fear that his industry has been stabilised at enslavement figures.