TE AWAMUTU COURIER Printed on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays MONDAY, 6th JULY, 1942 A BASIC PROBLEM

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 65, Issue 5494, 6 July 1942, Page 2

TE AWAMUTU COURIER Printed on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays MONDAY, 6th JULY, 1942 A BASIC PROBLEM

THE recent announcement of the Minister of Agriculture that a severe cut in the ration of fertiliser, under a scheme which now includes organic fertiliser as well as rock, is neither pleasing nor comforting, and it can be realised that Mr Barclay faces such a plan with feelings of misgiving. In his explanation he said that “ circumstances had arisen which made it necessary to review the position, ’ and he naturally consulted with the primary producers to the extent of seeking their helpful co-operation. Nobody will require over-much explanation of the surrounding factors; it is the direct consequence of a supply position which has developed with the progress of the war, and which has worsened with the spread of the conflict over the islands in the Pacific. The Minister, therefore, had little cause for a searching of the causes of shortage, and he could just as readily have dispensed with an appeal for sympathetic understanding. The decision for a further rationing “cut” appears to be that of the National Council of Primary Production, which naturally would have searched the facts fully and have seriously measured the consequences. Clearly, a high level of productivity cannot be maintained without adequate and regular manuring of the land. This is as true of pastoral as of arable production and market gardening, and is variable only in its degree between localities. But it is nation-wide, and no farming country can carry intensive production without a return of fertilisers. The earlier ration was perhaps most severely felt on the hillcountry, and perhaps the greatest defect in the past vyas that there was not sufficient elasticity in the rationing scheme to adjust the natural and climatic factors. All the same, there is at present every reason to maintain land in the best possible condition. The demand for production is urgent; in the dairying industry the call-over from butter to cheese, and now apparently, from cheese to butter, shows that there can be no let-up in the food-producing capacity of our dairying lands. Under such an urgent demand for production, coupled with the decreasing fertiliser supply, there must arise a strong tendency to overwork productive land. The cumulative effects of a shortage of fertiliser supplies and a shortage of labour are likely to intensify the tendency and make the present dangers more definite ere many months have passed. The Farmers’ Union has already become keenly apprehensive, and its opinion is manifested in a desire for a halt in withdrawing any more labour from the farms for the Army While both destructive agencies are at work to undermine basic farming practice, actual production must tend to decline, and the land will c'v of the period in bad and hungry condition. When maintenance falls, and it is falling, it is not only the returns that decline, but capital values shrink in proportion, and the costs, as well as the time in re-establishing both, are crippling. Mr Barclay must have had all these considerations in mind when he faced an unwelcome situation and accepted a short-term policy plan. It is, of course, the obvious answer to an equally obvious situation that supplies of fertiliser cannot be distributed if they do not exist, but that must not pre-suppose that everything possible has been done to increase or substitute the supplies. On this the Minister left it at the point of assumption that everything had been done; he gave no assurance For example, heavier production of organic manures would considerably ease the shortage of phosphates. It may be that the farmers expect to be told whether anything has been done in that direction, and especially learn whether more could be accomplishedThen, again, in American farming especially qn small dairy holdings, what is called the muck-waggon retrieves what is so generally a wastage in the cow-yards and dairy-sheds in New Zealand- It might be possible, by research and education, to substitute and utilise supplies which would in some part restore to our lands that which is now threatening so much deterioration. To that end the experts in the Department of Agriculture could perhaps do more than they have done in the past. War, it is true, always encroaches on capital maintenance, but when it encroaches on the maintenance of the land it needs all the powers of research and effort that we have at command to stay and minimise its ruinous influence, for now, as always, in the productive land of New Zealand lies the foundation of the economic state, and that, surely, must be preserved.