NATURAL SCIENCE AND FARMING

Southland Times, Issue 23942, 7 October 1939, Page 14

NATURAL SCIENCE AND FARMING

Research As Key To Prosperity BETTER STOCK AND PLANTS How natural science can assist twothirds of the world’s inhabitants, engaged in agriculture and reduced to a lower standard of living than the onethird who have taken to other industries, was discussed recently by the agricultural section of the annual conference of the British Association for the Advancement of Science. While price-insurance, subsidies, and other such measures for assisting agriculture occupy today much of the thought of farmers, more hope was attached to research work into means of increasing farming efficiency by Sir Thomas Middleton in his presidential address.

After a survey of why farming, although the oldest and still the most important occupation, should yet be the Cinderella of all industries, Sir Thomas gave a brighter picture of the extent to which natural scientists are progressing in the search for better cows, rens, pigs, plants, grasses, and sou.

He likened the present situation of British agriculture to that of 1839 when, after a period of acute distress the optimism of farmers reasserted itself, and turned to natural science for' help. In 1909 the State grant for agricultural research was only £3OB, he pointed out, and this had now grown to some £500,000, which was by no means the only source of funds available. AMERICAN EXAMPLE Sir Thomas urged Britain "to study the example of the United States in rallying natural science to the aid of farmers in their acute distress six years ago. He quoted the United States Secretary of Agriculture, Mr Henry A. Wallace: “I trust that the day will come when humanity will take as great an interest in the creation of superior forms of life as it has taken in past years in the perfection of superior forms of machinery. In the long run superior life forms may prove to have greater profit for mankind than m The m extent to which Britain and the Empire were exploring new ways to increase the efficiency of farming could be judged, ?ir Thomas said, from the fact that Australia had already introduced more than 6000 new plants from 67 countries; Britain was learning from America and Russia methods of soil surveying; India had already benefited greatly from the studies of plant breeders. , „ . „ The distributing trades swallowed a far larger proportion of the price paid for food since the world war. Sir Thomas pointed out. In fact, if the farmer received the same proportion or the retail price as he did in 1914 there would be no agricultural problems, according to Sir Thomas. But consumers were now much more exactin'* in their requirements and they were weR served. For instance, the number of insured people employed in the distributory trades in 1937 was 3,500,000 and in 1938 it had risen to 4,500,000.