ECONOMIC FARMING

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23830, 9 June 1939, Page 3

ECONOMIC FARMING

PLEA FOR REDUCED COSTS SOLUTION TO FARMERS* DIFFICULTIES SOME “TEMPORARY EXPEDIENTS” The view that the various methods for assisting the farming community that had been suggested in recent months were only temporary expedients and that reduced costs and consequently more economic farming was the best solution, was expressed by the chairman (Mr A. C. Cameron) at the annual meeting yesterday morning of the Otago and Southland Council of the Federation of New Zealand Young Farmers’ Clubs. “The Young Farmers’ movement should not touch on any subject savouring of party politics," said Mr Cameron, moving'the adoption of the annual report and balance sheet, “ but I should like to take this opportunity of expressing my views, as chairman, on the present economic situation. Four Suggestions “At the present time, certain classes of farmers are right up against it,” Mr Cameron said, “ and it is evident that if the land they are farming is to be kept in production, they must receive some assistance. It is not my purpose to discuss the relative merits of the form that assistance should take. Various recommendations have been made to the powers that be along one or other cf the following lines: That costs be reduced drastically; that the exchange rate be allowed to rise to its natural level, a level which is estimated I. be somewhere in the vicinity of 50 to 60 per cent, above par; that direct subsidies be given to certain classes of producers; and that a guaranteed price be fixed for meat and wool, this price to be sufficiently high to prove of definite assistance to producers. Some of these recommendations possess a certain amount of merit and it may be necessary to give effect to one or other of them if agriculture in New Zealand is to be saved from a severe set-back. “ Most of us, however, realise that apart from a reduction in costs all such recommendations must only prove temporary expedients," Mr Cameron continued, “ and the real problem can only be solved by getting down costs, or in other words, farming more economically. This means the application of scientific knowledge to farming and the study of every problem which involves a percentage of loss. Economic Farming “If, for instance, farmers can reduce their loss ratio in lambs by a study or knowledge of the causes of such Tosses,” said Mr Cameron; “if they can increase the yield of wheat or oats to the acre by the application of scientific knowledge; if by the use of more modern methods of tillage or top-dressing waste effort can be reduced to a minimum; if by the application of business management to farming greater efficiency can be, obtained, then the tendency of this must be in the direction of reduced costs." Mr Cameron made the qualification that the foregoing assumption could only apply provided the cost of reducing the mortality either in stock or in crop, or increasing the yield did not cost more than the benefit gained. "It is in this direction that the work of the Young Farmers’ Clubs can be of definite assistance,’" he concluded. “Scientific knowledge is never static. New developments are constantly taking place, and it is difficult enough for the .more alert minded to keep pace with these developments. In my opinion, the young farmer of to-day, who is to be the farmer of to-morrow, cannot afford to neglect keeping pace with modern developments, and I consider that the Young Farmers’ Club is the best medium through which this can be done.”