ANIMAL HUSBANDRY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23810, 17 May 1939, Page 5

ANIMAL HUSBANDRY

ARGENTINE AGENT'S VISIT COMPREHENSIVE INVESTIGATION (Special to Daily Times) AUCKLAND, May 16. For the first time on record an investigation of the live stock and dairy industries of Australia and New Zealand is being made this winter by a representative of Argentina, Senor B. Lezica Alvear. who is at present in Auckland. Senor Alvear arrived from San Francisco by the Mariposa last week and has since been visiting farms and dairy factories in the Waikato. He intends to spend six weeks in New Zealand, and will then make a comprehensive tour of Australia occupying about three months. The visitor is a member of one of the most notable landholding families of Argentina, a descendant of its first President, and a nephew of Dr Marcelo de Alvear, who held that office from 1922 to 1928. He has represented his country at international meat conferences, and has been sent on the present tour by the Argentine Meat Board and the Department of Agriculture of the Argentine Government, which is particularly interested in dairying. The Meat Board. Senor Alvear explained in an interview, was a body consisting of representatives of pastoralists and the Government. 'His mission was to gather information on the live stock industries of "our two principal competitors," and he had come provided with many letters of introduction from Mr R. S. Forsyth, the London manager of the New Zealand Meat Producers' Board, whom he knew well and for whom he had a very high regard. While in the Dominion he intended to see all classes of sheep and dairy farms in both islands, together with freezing works, dairy factories and research institutions. He also expected to gather information on the economic conditions of the industries and or grading and marketing. Naturally, the visitor added, the Government's bulk purchase scheme for dairy produce was of particular interest because nothing like it appeared to be in operation anywhere else. The general financial state of the Dominion came within the scope of his inquiry, and he regretted that he would not have an opportunity of meeting the Minister of Finance (Mr Walter Nash).