BRITAIN’S NEED

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24282, 26 April 1940, Page 11

BRITAIN’S NEED

MORE DAIRY PRODUCE APPEAL TO FARMERS ESSENTIAL WAR EFFORT (Per United Press Association) DANNEVIRKE, Apl. 24. An appeal to the patriotism of the farmeis of the Dominion was made by Mr R B. Tennent director of the National Council of Production, at a meeting at Dannevirke yesterday. He urged farmers to grow more hay, ensilage. and turnips, to reverse the tendency for dairy cow numbers to decline, and to produce more butter-fat as their essential war effort. This could be done most rapidly by improving the supplementary feed provision, and after that by better general management and by increasing the - size of herds, in the first instance by culling fewer cows and after that bv saving more calves. Prior to making the appeal, Mr Tennent said that owing to Britain’s foreign sources of imported butter being either completely cut off or threatened, New Zealand farmers had an opportunity as \ never before, of showing practical patriotism by producing every possible ounce of butterfat in the knowledge that the civilians of Britain and our armies overseas could absorb more than was available for them. In 1938 New Zealand supplied just over half the butter used by' Britain that came from the Empire, Mr Tennent said. The sources of foreign supplies • now cut off, or threatened, amounted to 98 per cent, of such supplies, being 44 per cent, of the total consumption of the United Kingdom There was little doubt that the primary resources of the Empire would be strained to the uttermost to meet the position in Britain.