IN DESPERATE STRAITS

Southland Times, Issue 22915, 13 June 1936, Page 14

IN DESPERATE STRAITS

“DANISH FARMERS ARE NOT HAPPY” Critical European observers are pointing out that Denmark, in concentrating on the British market, has built up a national economy on a dangerous foundation. They are losing the market they have depended upon, and now must organize for a new objective. Certainly at the present time the Danish farmer is in a bad way, that is if we are to believe a British observer with a party of Irish farmers, who recently investigated the farming position of Denmark. This observer, A. A. McGuckian, says in the official organ of the Pig Marketing Board of Northern Ireland: “Danish farmers are not happy. They have built up a mighty machine to produce and distribute, and they have only succeeded in getting into debt. The average debt on Danish farms is around £6O per acre. Every pound of butter sold loses the producer about sd. They are about the largest butter producers in the world, and they cannot afford to eat butter; they use margarine. And they don’t eat bacon. Agricultural wages are low, about 18/ • a week and 20/- at harvest. Anyone could get a farm if he would take over the mortgage and promise to pay the interest. I asked a man who is a large farmer, and who is also chairman of a number of co-operative organizations, about the prospects for the future, and he said ‘poverty’.”