SHOULD DAIRY FARMERS COOPERATE?

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1746, 23 August 1905, Page 58

SHOULD DAIRY FARMERS COOPERATE?

Several points of interest wore toudbed upon by Mr J. Nugent Harris in a paper read before the Surveyors’ Institution, at Eixeter, last month. W« give a few extracts: — Take the question of stock. Howmany farmers can tell the profit or loss on each head of their stock during the year? They have a hazy notion, hut that is all. Up and down throughout the country I have asked formers who have gone in for butter production to tell me the number of gallons of milk used in their dairies to make a pound of butter. Very few could answer me, and these only in a very vague manner. With the foreign farmer it is not so. He can give you all these particulars from carefully kept records, and be takes a pride in keeping them. That there is an immense field for co-operation in the sale of produce, no one who has taken the trouble to comp.ire the wholesale and retail prices of various kinds of agricultural produce can possibly doubt. It has been estimated, for example, that the dairy farmer of the western counties who sends milk to London obtains about 6d per gallon for milk, wh ; ch is sold retail at Is 4d per gallon. Th'i® is only one example out of many which oould be adduced to show how small a proportion of the price paid by the consumer actually finds its way into the farmer’s pocket. Imagine how rich the farmer would he if he could ob’ain one half the price at which his produce is sold to the consumer. There would he verylittle agricultural depression. Co-opera-tion for the sale of produce, however, is far more difficult to carry out than co-operation for the purpose of requirements. Nevertheless, some progress has been made iin this direction. There is no branch of the farm****’ - -

industry to "which,, in other countries, co-operation has been so successfully applied as butter production. The great Banish butter industry has been built up entirely on a 00-operative 'basis, arid •by far the greater proportion of the butter imported into this country is the product of co-operative creameries. I am informed, by expert authority that, of every three pounds of butter consumed in this country nearly two and a-half are imported, and of these two are produced by co-operative associations. Ireland, too, has revolutionised her butter industry by the adoption of co-operative methods, and is steadily regaining her place in the Etngk&h market. In England there are a few successful co-operative creameries in but-ter-producing districts, but the field for such, creameries is limited in this country, where the sale of full cream milk for town supply is the rule, over an area which has extended as facility for transport has increased. Co-operative dairies, for the production of butter or cheese alone, can only be organised in districts where there is practically no outlet for whole milk. In most parts of England co-operative' dairy societies, to be successful, must he adaptable. "Whatever their main industry may be, they must have subsidiary industries to which they can turn according to the changing conditions of the market. On these lines I have no doubt there will ultimately be an immense development of co-operative effort among English dairy farmers.

Mr Buck (Worcester) said there was , no doubt that in the sale of milk and butter co-operation was necessary if they were to do anything in ‘it to any extent. There was a time when agriculture was too prosperous, and dairying was neglected. Mr W. Edward Woolley (Loughborough) thought if any organisation could regulate the supply of milk to London they would soon obtain het- ' tier prices. He was jealous of handing over any industry to a combine or to co-operative societies, believing that the secret of the great success of Englishmen was individuality of action, and that if they caused it to he understood that co-operation was going to- do so much for him, they would injure and not benefit the farmer.