DAIRY FARMING IN DENMARK.

Otago Witness, Issue 3337, 27 February 1918, Page 11

DAIRY FARMING IN DENMARK.

By Geo. M. Hassing

Denmark as a dairying-producing country offers many examples .to New Zealand, and it is therefore interesting to record the progress of the industry there. Denmark, is a farmer State. It has a farmer Parliament, a farmer Ministry, a farmer point of view. Its legislation is that of the farmer, too. In Denmark the people really rule. Tho Danish peasant is the direct antithesis of. the peasant, who loves to be ruled by & lord, '['he State of Denmark, in short, is a peasant den.ocracy. Its ruling class is the small farmer, possessing from 40 to 60 acres of land, and with an outlook on life that is exclusively agricultural. The success of these peasant farmers of Denmark con-stitutes-an object-lesson in thrift and cooperation to the world in general and this Dominion in particular. The land is far from rich, the climate is not the beet, and the winters are very Idng. But the Danish - peasant owns his land. Denmark is a country of peasant proprietors. • <■ This is the economic framework of his civilisation. The Danish peasant is his own landlord, and he has made use of the Government to promote the acquisition of land among the people. About 1850 credit societies were .organised, which supplied capital to the pea'sant t with which to buy land. These societies * took long-time mortgages, running from 50 to 100 years. Under these contracts the. peasants pay off both the principal and the interest in instalments similar to our Advance! to Settlers Act. In 1899 and 1904 the State stimulated this movement still further by laws that enabled the small peasants to borrow money from the State Treasury with which* to buy a holding. The value of the land is limited to about £3OO, and the size of .the estate so purchased ranges'from eight to 12 acres. Only one-tenth of the purchase money need be found by the purchaser. The State advances the other nine-tenths, and charges' the peasant 4 per cent., 1 per cent, of which is to repay the Joan. The ..effect df B the law was to increase the value of the land of the large estate-owners, but the general effect of the legislation and of the Mutual Credit Societies has ' been to,, check the movement of the people away from the land. Denmark is perhaps the only country in Europe where this is true. • —-Peasant. Proprietorship.—' There is very little tenancy in Denmark. Over 89 per cent of the farmers own their own farms. They work then - own holdings. Only about 11 per cent, are tenants, and ownership in Denmark is- widely distributed. The total number of farms is 250,000, with af cultivated area of over 10,000,000 acres. The very laige farms are survivals of the old feudal estates. They comprise about one-tenth of the total agricultural area. There are three things which make Denmark unique. The first is the system of peasant ownership; the second is the cooperative movement, which is well-nigh universal; and the third is 'the political supremacy of the peasant class. The second and third causes are, however, due to the first. For home-ownership lies at the root of the Dane's success. , , —Secret of His Success.— The Dane is the best farmer in the world. The secret of his success, is intense cultivation. The land is minutely divided, the average size of the farms, which comprise nine-tenths of the land, being 39 acres. About 100,000 peasants with larger farms, ranging from 13£ to 150 acres, who own about seven-tenths of the land, live very much better than the farmers just mentioned. They work their farms partly with hired labour, are well educated, and devote a lot of time to politics and the cooperative undertakings with which they are connected. They are the ruling class in the State, and are as wise as the traditional Jew and as canny as the Scot. They control the politics of their district, and are ascendant in Parliament as well. They know all about the most technical agriculture, are familiar with prices current, are rather skilled mechanics and good chemists. They are saturated with a knowledge of agriculture, and are not consumed with ,'the ambition to be rich or to acquire more land. Their only ambition is to bo good farmers. Denmark a Market Garden.— The Dane has made his land a dairy farm. Denmark is cultivated liko a market garden. Tho chief products are butter, eggs, bacon, poultry, and fine stock. A generation ago, like the farmers _ of England, tho Dane was 'threatened with extinction by the wheatfielde of America, Russia, and _ the Argentin Republic. But the Danish peasant' is self-reliant, and he is a convinced Freetrader. He looked about for other markets. He found that England was f citing her butter, eggs, and bacon from reland. Ho sent a commission to that country to ascertain how Ireland produced these things. The Parliament and the,, peoplo set to work to convert Denmark into a market garden. That was only a little over a quarter of a century ago. Soon the Danes were produoing better bacon, better butter, better eggs than tho Irish. Within the last few years no fewer than four special commissions have been to

Denmark from Ireland and Scotland to find out how it is done. For the Danes have captured the English market, and they have done it by improving- upon Irish methods. Denmark is- now exporting to Germany, to England, to South "America, and even to the Philippines. Agriculture a Technical Business. — Most \>f the horses and cattle go to Germany. The bulk of the-balance of the export goes to England. The total oxport trade is approximately £75 for every farm, of which 133,000 of the 250,000 are less than 13£ acres in extent, and have an average size of but 36 acres, the average of all the farms being but 43 acres for the entire country. The Danish farmer is an expert. He is also a student. He has studied the breed of horses until he can be raised to the best advantage, and what the German mostly wants. The same is true of cattle, hogs, and poultry. He knows to a nicety just how a cow should bo fed to produce the beet butter. He knows how to breed the best hogs. He makes his butter and produces his eggs of a uniform qualitj. Ho packs thorn so that they will please, and he is aided in countless ways by 'the State. The State is always at his service. ° ■ — The Co-operative Movement.— The other great factor is co-operation. The Danish farmer gets all that he produces—absolutely all. The State owns the railways and protects the farmer from exr ploitation, and he himself performs all the processes of distribution, and exchange. The co-operative movement begap with dairying. Up to 1880 each farmer made hie own butter. It was very costly, and there was no uniformity in the product. About this time a new device was invented for butter-making. A number of farmers got - together • and purchased one of the machines. Its success was immediate. Other villages followed. To-day there are 1087 co-operative dairies with a membership of 158,000 farmers. There are also two large private dairies. Nearly 95 per cent, of the farmers are members of the co-operative dairies, which ship nearly £200,000 worth of. butter weekly to England. The Danish Co-operative Egg Export Society was the next organisation. It was organised in 1895. It now has 17,000 members. The eggs are collected .and stamped each day in a local circle, then they are eerit to the larger circle for export. In 1908 the export egg business amounted to £1,329,000. Danish eggs bring fancy' prices, for they are always fresh and carefully graded.' The peasant is also his own banker. There are 536 co-operative. savings banks in the country. Here the farmer' places his savings. Here he goes when he wants a loan. The' deposits in 1905 amounted to £41,700,000, and the number of depositors 1,532,000, over half the population, with an average deposit of £3l. But the co-opera-tive story does not end here. The farmer does his own buying wholesale. Through these purchasing societies he buys food for his cattle. Almost everything that he consumes comes to him at cost. It is purchased by central agencies made up from, representatives of_ local agencies. The goods are then distributed to the stores, one of which is to be. found in every village. Thus he gets his agricultural implements; thus he buys his food arfd all his supplies. He saves the profit -of the jobber and the retail dealer for himeejf. 'I he turnover of the purchasing societies in 1907 was £2,500,000. Now, what is the lesson of it all? In the first place it demonstrates the controlling influence of a system of landownership on the life of a people. Denmark is democratic, enlightened, and selfgoverned, becauss the great bulk of the people have an interest in the soil. France, Holland, and Switzerland prove the same thing. It shows, too, that poverty can be reduced to a minimum, and the well-being of all the people promoted by State aid and co-operation. Even wages in the city are determined by the agricultural situation. The ease with which men live on the farm and acquire holdings of thejr own compels the employer to compete with the land for his labour. The land question thus lies at the root of the wages question. Further than this, the Danish farmer appreciates that he is a consumer as well as a Ho has learned that his success in agriculture is the result of his own efforts. He is not afflicted by trusts and monopolies. There is sufficient competition in the world which seeks him out to enable him to pick and choose, and ho is able to get the best that the world offers, and at his own price. In concluding, I may here mention that the political power exercised by the Danish farmer should open the eyes of our New Zealand agriculturists. The mistake Mr Glass, the first organiser made, and which I pointed, out to him at the time, when some 20 years ago he organised the Farmers' Union throughout this Dominion, wa3 that the union should be non-politi-cal. So long as our Farmers' Union sticks to that illogical policy, so long will the claims of our farmers—who could swamp the House with members if they stuck together—be ignored in our Parliament.