Modern Motto for Farmers Is Tend Your Own Business

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18313, 3 February 1934, Page 12

Modern Motto for Farmers Is Tend Your Own Business

THE -slump lias disproved the apparently sound advice given to New Zealand farmers bv all and sundry that they should not carry ail their eggs in the one basket. For a time, it seemed as though the carrying of several partly-filled baskets, in place of the single full one, was going to be the salvation of one .section of the farming community, but as. the slump wore drearily on all baskets became profitless. Now that wool is back again to a profitable basis, there is evidence that sheepfanners are reverting to the single basket system because other baskets are worse than useless to them.

The changing over from one type of farming to another was nowhere more pronounced than in the Gisborne district. When wool slumped, growers with suitable land turned their attention to early fat lamb production until that market was ruined, and mutton fell in sympathy, being influenced also by large supplies sent in by sheepfarmors who were trying to make up in meat what they had Inst in wool.

That was quite legitimate practice; in fact, it had to be done, or many of the sheep men would not have been able to weather the storm. But that was only the start of the system of using more than one basket. Rush, to Dairying.

Until about half-way through the slump, the dairy produce market remained at a level that was high compared with the value for wool. At a shilling per lb., there was a living to be gained by butterfat production, although there was nothing to spare. Anyway, it was better than wool and meat at that time.

The result was that everyone began to produce butterfat. Sheep men bought dairy herds, some going into the industry in a big way. Herds of over 100 cows are now being milked on Gisborne country that was grazed entirely by sheep and station cattle until three years ago. This went on all over New Zealand and Australia as well. Dairy production in these two countries rose enormously year by year. Now, butterfat is worth only about 64d per lb. on present market rates.

Criticism has been levelled at the manipulation of speculators, who have been blamed for much of the harm done to the markets. Much of what has been said in this respect might be time, but after all it is the old law of supply and demand that has tho greatest influence. Now that there is a tendency for sheepfarmers to desert tho dairy industry again, the glut in supplies might not be so pronouuced in the future, but the glut remains, and legitimate dairy farmers are suffering while the sheep man is happy once more.

Beyond Their Scope. This gets us back to the argument about eggs and baskets. When politicians were urging farmers to produce more than one type of produce, the tendency towards specialisation was ignored. It is to be hoped that it is ignored no longer. To-day is the day of the specialist more than ever it was, even if ono is a dairy fanner at 64d per lb. butterfat. To stick to the dairy industry and to become a specialist at the job will pay a cow farmer in the long run. Everyone would have been better off had the wool grower stuck to his sheep throughout the slump, specialised in improving his wool, and been ready with a big flock of excellent sheep to embrace this new prosperity, instead of making an outlay on a dairy herd —a branch of farming of which ho has no special knowledge. The trouble seems to have occurred by the advice being taken too literally. Perhaps the advisers wlio talked about eggs and baskets did not mean that a farmer should dabblo in a branch of the industry that was strange to him. Perhaps they meant that a farmer should utilise his farm and his products to the best possible advantage without going beyond his scope, such as a dairy farmer using his skim milk for the feeding of pigs. But even here, the trend can go too far. There arc good prospects for pork and bacon at present, and many Gisborne farmers have taken advantage of it by expanding their swi.no herds, but it can be overdone if the trond goes on indefinitely. So it seems that farmers should be content to attend to their own particular business, developing their farms and their herds, or flocks, to the best possiblo advantage so that they canget the utmost from their properties by using tho special knowledge at their command, leaving other typos of farming to the men who understand them best. Butterfat will become profitable again, just as wool has re-, turnod to favor, and the fluctuations of recent years would have been less marked had. farmers been content to attend to their own particular types of farming instead of trying to chase tho markets.