THE DAIRYING INDUSTRY.

Otago Witness, Issue 3698, 27 January 1925, Page 14

THE DAIRYING INDUSTRY.

If my subject. “The Dairying Industry” (says J. A. Ruddick. Dominion Dairy Commissioner, Ottawa), has any interest it will be from different angles, according to whether you live in towns and are interested os consumers in matters relating to quality of product and prioe roduction, or live in the country and belong to the army of producers who are concerned more with increased production and the probabilities for higher prices. Tho dairying industry has grown to large proportion in Canada. The total annual value of milk and its products now reaches

the largo figure of nearly 25O,G0i>,000doL Wo manufactured in Canada iOi>t year 101,44%, ot cheese and 160,b03,fc621b of creamery butter. More milk is consumed as milk Ilian is used for either butter or cheese. Large quantities are condensed and cried, and me ice-cream industry has become of considerable importance of late years. With improvement in manufacture, storage, and retngerated transport, dairy products have become articles of international trade, and may be carried from one end of the world to the other, provided the facilities are available. This being so, it is the world’s supply and demand that regulates the general level of prices in all these countries where there is a surplus for export. Ur, to put it in another way, it ia the average of the local conditions in all countries that governs the situation everywhere. lhe actual price in different countries is affected slightly by the relar tivo cost of transport to the world’s markets and occasionally by reason of seasonal or temporary shortages, so that we may have slight departures, up and down, from the basic or world's price for these reasons. It is important to bear in mind, however, that so long as Canada has a surplus for export, the price of milk, butter, and cheese in this country depends on the world conditions and not on increased or decreased production, or the quantities in storage in this country. The quantity of butter and cheese in store at any time has no bearing or influence on local prices except in so far as such quantities affect world conditions. There has been much misinformation and misunderstanding in the mind of the general public on this point, which it is worth while tiyiifg to correct. The season of 1924 has been favourable for milk production in Canada, and there will be an increase in the quantities of both cheese and creamery butter manufactured os compared with 1823. The surplus for export will also be larger than it was last year. Canada meets much keener competition in the world’s markets, especially for cheeso than she formerly did. At one time this country supplied nearly all the cheese imported into tiie United Kingdom of the type that we produce. At the present time our great rival in supplying dairy produce to the United Kingdom is our sister dominion, New Zealand. The exports of both butter and cheese from New Zealand have grown so rapidly during the last 10 years as to raise the position of that country from one of comparative unimportance to that of first place among the dairy exporting countries of the world. New Zealand now exports more cheese than Canada does, and it seems quite possible that in a few years she will have a larger surplus of butter than Denmark. Even now New Zealand is the largest exporter of dairy produce in the world putting cheese and butter together, though not by any means the largest producer. With only a million population, she exports about fO per cent, of the total production while Canada with its larger population has a surplus for export of only about 20 per cent, of the total product. Every effort must be made on the part of Canadian dairymen to raise the standards of production in every erspect. The old methods and equipment which served so well in the earlier days of the industry are no ’onger adequate. Although the making of cheese and butter is one of the very oldest of the technical arts, the science of dairying dates back only 25 or 30 years. Great advances have been made in light of the teaching of bacteriology and chemistry, and if we ignore these facts our competitors will, before very long, drive us out of the market. On the other hand, if wc wake up in time, I see no reason w'hv Canada cannot compete successfully with any other country. It is a fact that the best Canadian cheese is recognised as the finest article on the market and meets the demands cf the highest class of trade better than the New Zealand article. It only requires that the total output should be brought up to the standard of the best. If we succeed in this, thero is no immediate danger of the dairying industry being overdone, because the finest quality of any article will always find a ready market. The newer knowledge of nutrition which places milk and its products much higher in the dietary scale than they formerly w-ere is encouraging a much larger per capita consumption of milk and its products, and this new demand will take care of a greatly increased production. The most striking feature of ‘dairy progress in Canada at the present time is I lie marked leaning towards dairving in the prairie provinces. The percentage of increase in the production of butter"is greater in these provinces than in any other part of Canada at the present time.