Poverty Bay Herald PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING GISBORNE, FRIDAY, DEC. 29, 1933. PLANNING FOR FARMERS

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LX, Issue 18283, 29 December 1933, Page 6

Poverty Bay Herald PUBLISHED EVERY EVENING GISBORNE, FRIDAY, DEC. 29, 1933. PLANNING FOR FARMERS

New Zealand is profoundly interested in the measures which are being in other countries, and particularly in Great Britain, for the safeguarding of agriculture. The level of remuneration for the primary producer has become in most countries a matter of first importance, and so there have come demands for subsidies, quotas and regulation of marketing which if granted will vastly influence the currents of trade and constitute a veritable agricultural revolution. The tendency everywhere is for control. In New Zealand we have our marketing boards governing the export of various forms of produce; in Australia and South Africa they have them too; Canada’s wheat is subject more or less io governmental control, and in the United ■States under the Recovery Act there is most drastic regulation of farm production. Is it surprising, therefore, that, the agrarian interests of Britain are realising the need for cooperation and seeking restriction ol imports into their own country? In Mr. Walter Elliot, tlie .Minister for Agriculture, they have a most energetic benefactor, and he has emphatically declared that in the present century—the century of surplus—the machinery of control as known in the nineteenth century is utterly inadequate. Mr. Elliot is busily engaged in the extension of control to nil rural industries. State assistance is not altogether a new policy for Britain, for bv various forms of subsidy, relief of rates, preferential rail rates, research and education it, Ims, been calculated that relief lias been granted to the extent of £IOO per farm on the average. What is new in .lie policy now being pursued by the Government is the emphasis placed on the expansion of output in the Biitish Isles and the maintenance of remunerative prices at ruling cost. '1 o secure these objects a new Marketing Act has been passed and is gradually being brought into operation over verious phases of farming indnstix. “Agriculture,” says the Minister, “will have to move progressively forward, with sufficient organisation to keep prices from falling into chaos. At home or abroad cheapness may be brought 100 dearly. The housewife who buys a thing too cheaply goes home to find her man on the dole. The policy of the quota is the policy of planning trade.” The full policy is not yet in operation and it is impossible to estimate what the ultimate results will be, but according to Professor Copland, the New Zealand economist, who has been studying the developments in England, the first fruits of subsidies, or guaranteed pri-ces, are increases in production. This is clearly in evidence in wheatgrowing in Great Britain. Acreage has already expanded by ffii per cent since 1931, while farm receipts have trebled. It is unfair, however, lo take 1031 as a basis for comparisons, because acreago was Iqw and wheat prices were below their remunerative level. But the farmer has undoubtedtv been encouraged to concentrate more upon wheat production. Thanks to this and to quite a good season, output has this year exceeded by live million cwt Hie basic figure or -7 million cwt upon which the wheat bounty scheme was constructed. Another illustration of Hie same character is to be found in the bacon industry. It was estimated by the Bacon Marketing Board Hint local production ol bacon would be 7,7i>o,ooocwt, but owing to the fixation of a higher price the output is now running at Hie rale of three million cwt per annum, a figure not expected to be reached before 1935. Professor Copland says wo

must reckon with a period of experimentation until all the main supplies of agricultural produce are brought within the scope of the system of close regulation, ft may then be found that the total burdens of this regulation upon Hie export industries are damaging lo Britain’s economic, si rue,lure. Be that as it may, no one can doubt Hie determination of Hie authorities to proceed with t hoi r highly interesting experiment. Lord Astor and Dr. Keith Murray, an Oxford economist, in their now hook “The I’lannmg of Agriculture,” have offered some criticism of the new policy. They aslc a number of questions, such as: Is marketing reorganisation a sufficient remedy for low prices? Is control of agricultural production feasible or wise? How large a part for auv success depends on State action, and how far can the State go in protecting the farmer? In answering these questions some tentative suggestions are made, but the book attempts no dogmatic or comprehensive programme. The authors clearly feel with Sir Arthur Salter, who contributes a foreward, that in agricultural policy “we alternate between periods of neglect: or inaction and periods of hasty and inadequately considered activity. We are now in one of the second of these periods.

. . . There is a very serious riskabove all to British agriculture—in meeting temporary troubles by permanent measures.” Lord Aster’s views on quotas are well known. Import boards, the authors say, would be preferable, and tariffs preferable to both, as a means of safeguarding the British farmer against the exploitation of his home market. Marketing schemes, which are complementary to import quotas, arc open to a good deal of criticism. Lord Astor and Dr. Keith Murray look ahead for trouble, and suggest that; the development ol marketing schemes will mean the rigid control of production on the farm. They argue that in a country where mixed farming prevails a quota, or production allotment system cannot be put into force for one or two products only, since that would only increase the instability of the supplies and prices of other commodities. Bor instance, stabilisation of Hie bacon industry will probably increase the short-term fluctuations in the pork market. The conclusion then is that production control, to be effective, must cover all products. Would not, they ask, the multiplicity of producers’ control boards and their coordination present an almost super-

human task? Is il humanly possible lo enforce control by a series of boards on 500,000 farmers, each of them producing varying products in' varying proportions of each unit?' Even if control on 'these lines is possible, may not the inflexibility and irritation of the system become in t tolerable. “To some people,” com j meats the Times, “there has seemed to be a risk of Hie marketing boards j coming too much under the domination of enthusiasts for economic planning who would fashion a straight-waist-coat into which all sections of agriculture must fit or take the consequences of independence of Government aid. But the members of these hoards are practical farmers and they now have their own competent stall’s to assist them in setting a course which will avoid dangers that lie in the stereotyped control of production. (Scope must always be left for individual enterpris in farming. Otherwise marketing schemes, however per-j feet on paper, will break down under the weight of the elaborate machinery j required to ensure detailed control and, no less certainly, ihc refusal of farmers to sacrifice the liberty of action which is necessary to the si ecess of their business. Whatever disagreements there may be about the relative merits of import quotas and tariffs as means of holding the ring for the development of home production, there is a common ground in the belief that marketing organisation which ensures a regular supply of standardised produce will bring improved returns to the farmer and benefits to the consumer. The pig marketing scheme, for instance, will make a notable contribution to the prosperity of agriculture if it establishes the reputation of English bacon with the housewife. The spur of the Marketing Act was needed to bring pig breeders and carers together to make a serious effort to regain the bacon market. They have made a good start.” Lord Astor and Dr. Murray fear that there is a real danger of the phrase “marketing reorganisation” being regarded as a panacea for present troubles and so preventing concentration on the more fundamental aspects of the problem. Their concluding observation is that “ill-timed and unsound planning intended to achieve the re-adjustment of supply and demand, rigid trade restrictions and agreements covering periods of years and the false development in industries at home may only serve to maintain tlie barriers' against, a return to world peace ami better conditions,” In their view the policy which affords the most, hopeful outlook for the future of British fanning is one of economic reconstruction based on the fullest recognition of its dependency on industrial prosperity and, in turn, on the recovery of world t rude.