AUSTRALIAN DAIRYING

Otago Daily Times, Issue 23884, 11 August 1939, Page 13

AUSTRALIAN DAIRYING

LARGE BUTTER INCREASE STABILISATION SCHEME BENEFITS (From Our Own Correspondent) SYDNEY. July 29. Despite the drought in the eastern States early this year. Australia’s production of butter for the statistical year ended June 30 seems certain, when the figures are released, to exceed considerably that for the previous year. For the 11 months ended May 31. production was 3,636,827 cwt compared with 3,461,394 cwt for the corresponding period last year. Exports for the 11 months were i;844,049cwt. compared with 1,681,163 cwt for the corresponding period of 1937-38. Somewhere between £200,000,000 and £300,000,000, it has been variously estimated, is invested in dairy farms, stock and equipment throughout Australia, and more than £6,000.000 in dairy factory land, buildings and equipment The factories pay wages amounting to approximately £1,500,000 a year. and. in addition the industry provides for the maintenance on farms of about 500,000 persons. . For many years that part of the dairy industry concerned with the production of butter and cheese has been protected by a . tariff and by a pricefixing and stabilisation scheme. Under the stabilisation scheme, a special home price for locally-consumed butter and cheese is fixed. Surplus production is sold at export parity in the world’s markets, mainly the United Returns from sales in Australia and abroad are added together, and divided pro rata among producers less the costs of the operation of the scheme. Figures to show the benefits of the scheme were recently quoted by Mr C. Sheehy, the general manager of the Commonwealth Dairy Produce Equalisation Company, Ltd., which operates the scheme on behalf of the manufacturers of butter and cheese. These showed that the net benefit during each of the last five years was 22s 3d, 14s 6Jd. 12s, 6s 10Jd, and 14s a cwt respectively for butter, and 2.08 d, 2.41 d. 1.54 d, ,99d, and 1.27 d a lb for cheese. The cost of operation of the scheme, including costs of administering the cheese section, worked out at 1.16 d. 1.27 d, 1.37 d, 1.2 d, and Lid a cwt in the respective years. In addition to the actual monetary benefits to producers, it is claimed for the scheme that it enables market supplies to be regulated and the, extra costs involved to be spread over the industry as a whole, that it facilitates systematic storage for winter requirements, and tbut it prevents uneconomic interstate, transfers and eliminates price fluctuations and speculation. '