EXPORT SEED TRADE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26915, 29 October 1948, Page 5

EXPORT SEED TRADE

ENCOURAGING OUTLOOK FOR DOMINION SHORTAGE IN BRITAIN N.Z.P.A. Special Correspondent Rec. 10 p.m. LONDON, Oct. 28. Further encouragement to New Zealand’s export seed trade may follow discussions held by Mr R. B. Tennent, Assistant Director-general of Agriculture, who is now en route to the Dominion Before leaving London he remarked that there appeared to be a distinct shortage of certain classes of high-grade pasture seeds in the United Kingdom, which had been forced to import them from countries outside the Commonwealth. He believed, however, that full recognition of the value of New Zealand’s high-grade strains of clovers and grass seeds was now realised by farmers in the United Kingdom, and he was “ hopeful ” that the Dominion’s export trade would benefit.

Mr Tennent’s visit was to assist the grassland development campaign in the United Kingdom, and he found that the farmers were very interested in the possibilities of a greater use of grass. There was room for a great deal of improvement in grassland farming in the United Kingdom, he said, for the tendency was to leave pastures down too long and not to give them sufficient phosphate and lime. There had been, he added, a successful milk production drive, though* this had meant a considerable reduction in store stock for fattening, and the prices for them were at a premium. The British arable farmers he regarded as being without peer.