AVERTING LOSS OF LIVESTOCK

Southland Times, Issue 23538, 18 June 1938, Page 19

AVERTING LOSS OF LIVESTOCK

Bureau Of Research Recommended

SCHEME PROPOSED BY DR HAMMOND SEARCHING FOR CAUSE OF DISEASE I . I The establishment of three animal research institutes, one at Massey College, one at Canterbury Agricultural College, and the other at Wallaceville, as part of a scheme of organization for an Animal Research Bureau in New Zealand, is recommended by Dr John Hammond, F.R.S., of the Animal Nutrition School of the University of Cambridge, who recently visited the Dominion at the invitation of the Government to advise on the future development of the livestock industry. Some of the problems listed by Dr Hammond in his report as calling for investigation are dairy cow wastage, sheep wastage, and pig wastage. He states that it would be advisable m the first place to make a survey of the causes of losses in the different animal industries and to find out as far as possible the conditions under which these losses were most prevalent. Genetical problems, fertility problems, nutritional problems, meat problems, and livestock diseases are also discussed by Dr Hammond.

BUREAU RECOMMENDED The constitution of an animal research bureau is suggested by Dr Hammond. He recommends that the bureau should come directly under the Council of Scientific and .Industrial Research and that it receive a statutory grant to cover the cost of a nucleus staff and such other grants from the Treasury as may be approved by the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research. The bureau should consist of a chairman, 20 members, and a permanent secretary (in addition to the chairman and secretary of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, who would be ex officio members). It should have the power to co-opt other members for special purposes when and where required. There should be an executive committee to draw up plans, of work and deal with urgent administrative matters.

The duties of the bureau are prescribed as follows: Regulate the allocation of all funds for the purpose of animal research; survey the needs of the animal industry for research work from time to time and appoint specialist workers’ committees (to report back to the bureau) on any problems of importance which they considered required solution; co-ordinate the work, going on in the different research institutes; receive annually programmes of work for the following year from the directors of research institutes; receive a short annual report from each worker in the research institutes; periodically inspect the research institutes; approve the grading and selection of staff for the research institutes; have the power to assist financially special investigations, other than those at research institutes, having relation to problems under consideration by the bureau; take active steps to encourage and support cooperation with similar work in other countries. RESEARCH INSTITUTES It is suggested that three animal research institutes should be formed and located as follows: —(1) At Massey College, to deal with problems of the breeding, feeding, and management of dairy cows, pigs (pork and bacon), sheep (lamb and wool production),

beef cattle, horses,and poultry under North Island conditions; (2) at Canterbury Agricultural College, to deal with similar problems under South Island conditions; (3) at Wallaceville, to deal with the diseases of livestock.

Dealing with staffing of animal research institutes, Dr Hammond states it is important that research staffs should be free from all regulatory, administrative, and teaching duties. There should be a permanence of appointment.

"There are not at present sufficent men with the scientific training necessary in New Zealand to staff the research institutes,” says Dr Hammond. “In the long run it would be found advisable to begin work with a skeleton framework of men who are already in New Zealand and build young men around them, rather than to import wholesale from abroad specialists who would find difficulty in acquiring a knowledge of the peculiar conditions of animal production in New Zealand and who would probably want to leave the country after their term of appointment had expired. A skeleton framework could be obtained by relieving certain men, now largely engaged on teaching, of some of this work in order that they may form a nucleus around which young men on wholetime research appointments to a research institute could be trained. “At each animal research institute there should be a team of research workers drawn from different branches of science, the more important of these being animal nutrition and biochemistry, physiology and anatomy, and genetics and statistics. By judicious selection of men who specialize in one

science subject and in one animal product, a team of workers can be built up to deal with research on any problem which may arise. OBVIATING TIME LAG “It is not only necessary to solve animal-production problems by research, but it is equally as important to get the results over to the farmer with the least possible delay,” Di- Hammond continues. “Scientific research consists for the most part in an analysis of the problems, whereas before these analytical details can be used in practice they generally have to be synthesised up so as to fit in with the farming practice of the district. Unless this part can also be undertaken by experts there will be a large time lag in the application of the result of scientific research to industry. “It is suggested that an advisory service should be set up by the Department of Argiculture in connection with organized bodies of farmers; the farmers’ organization should pay 33 1-3 per cent, and the Government 66 2-3 per cent, of the cost. The farmers’ organization would make a selection of three men, one of which the Department would appoint to the post (or vice versa). The Department of Agriculture is the most suitable body to undertake this, as it knows the needs of the industry. By asking the farmers’ organizations to pay part of the cost and select the men they want they will take more interest in what the adviser is doing than they will if they have no responsibilities in the matter.

“Such advisory officers should be grouped in a separate department at the Department of Argiculture and should not have any regulatory duties to perform. An adviser would require to have the full confidence of the farmer, and this cannot be expected where he has regulatory duties. It is suggested, therefore, that the fields division (renamed advisory division) of the Department of Argiculture would be the most suitable for the attachment of such officers.”