KNOWLEDGE INTO PRACTICE

Southland Times, Issue 22999, 19 September 1936, Page 14

KNOWLEDGE INTO PRACTICE

ADVISORY SERVICES OF THE DEPARTMENT

The extensive manner in which the advisory and instructional services of the department continue to be utilized reflect to some extent the ever-chang-ing problems and difficulties that confront farming, (states the annual report of the Department of Agriculture). It may be said with safety that the demands upon the department are now more extensive, more varied, and more exacting than formerly, and this trend may be expected to continue if the increase in farm production, which seems in prospect, takes place. Whether an increase in our present farm production becomes a permanent feature of our national economy is dependent largely upon whether it is economic. Whether it is economic depends in its turn to some extent at least, upon the standard of efficiency attained in farm practices, and farm management. Hence, it is of some moment that increased production, correlated with increased efficiency, and lowered cost of production, is often obtainable in several spheres of farming in New Zealand merely by better application of knowledge we have at hand. However, the translation of knowledge into practice sometimes takes place quite slowly, and this seems to be particularly true of farming knowledge. Possibly an explanation of this has been the difficulty of disseminating knowledge among the farmers. Fortunately, however, this difficulty is being minimized by the influence of better facilities for social contact —motor cars, better roads, and radio. Hence, in the future, the translation of knowledge into practice, which it is a task of the Department of Agriculture •to foster and facilitate, may bring about increases in farm production more quickly than the rate of development in production of the past would lead one to expect.