FUTURE OF FARMING

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXI, Issue 18467, 4 August 1934, Page 2

FUTURE OF FARMING

POTENTIALITIES OP N.Z. POSSIBLE PRODUCTION Although the title of the address •which Mr A. H. Cockayne, assistant Director-General of the Department of Agriculture, delivered to a gefteral meeting of the Wellington Philosophical Society was “The Full Development of New Zealand’s Natural Desources,’’ the speaker said that lie would confine his remarks solely to the question of the. potentialities of farming. After a- review of the acreage of the Dominion and the amount of land which was, could not. be, of might be cultivated, Mr- ’ Cockayne said that the development of farming possibilities depended upon three factors. The first of these was..the amount of land available; the. second was the extent to which new scientific, research arid scientific discoveries were capable of being translated into -practice fo'v the increase of the potentialities of every acre; and the third Was the ability to market all that could be produced at a figure not less than the cost of production. Th.cf.first factor was definite and fixed, “but the other two were in no way stable. Roughly speaking, the future development of agriculture had to be confined to about 25,000,000 acres, -or to one-third of the country’s total area. “From this you can see,” he said, “that the. scope of development from an acreage standpoint is limited, making New Zealand a smaller agricultural country than orir insular rain'd is wont to regard it, but the twenty odd million acres with which T have been dealing i$ capable of further development to a very considerable extent.”

BUTTERFAT RETURN Mr 'Cockayne went on to say that it.« was reasonable to estimate that some 7,000,000 acres were suitable for. dairying, some 5,000,000 acres at the .present time being so utilised. The* average yield in butterfat per acre was atbpresent about 851 b. and the cow in milk averaged in a really good season 2401 b, and in a bad season about '2151b. Better grasses, along which line New Zealand was rapidly’ progressing, better stock, and bettor feeding of both grass and cotv,,’should make it easily possible to secure an average of 1401 b of hutterfat per acre over, -the'eOMntfy V 7,000,000 acres Of dairying land. With further scientific knowledge, the.figure of 1401 b might easily be exceeded; This would give approximately 450,000 tons of butterfat, or more than double the present production, arid, leriving cheese at “its present figure of 100,000 tons, would mean 500,000 tons of butter iu place of (the present 170,000 tons. An increase of 15,000 tons of butter a year would be perhaps possible, so that it could be.said that the potentiality of butterfat production was more than considerable on an area not very much greater than Was devoted to the industry to-dqy. "The fact that on all types of soil, pro vide&j that rainfall was satisfactory, the fulj exploitation of modern methods,of d'airy-farm grassland management! was resulting in acreage returns of 2001 b to 3001 b of butterfat clearly indicated that better grasses better used, and better stock better managed, made quite possible 450,000 tons of butterfat.

The possibility of a great expansion of the pig industry in conjunction with dairying; was the next, phase dealt with by 'Mr Cockayne, who said that on the basis of 401 b of pig meat per 1001 b of butter, the country could put its pig meat;potentiality at 200,000 tons if the realisation of 450,000 tons of butter we re’to come about. Beef, mutton, and lamb could be increased to 000,000 tons annually', and wool to 150,000 tons. The additional production could -be secured without any great increase in the number of holdings. Farms must, however, be of an economic size. Mr 'Cockayne concluded his address by emphasising the importance of taking stockj3.lourmatgral resources such ns forests lands and scenic areas.