DAIRY ORGANISATION

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 68, Issue 5944, 17 May 1944, Page 5

DAIRY ORGANISATION

FINE EXAMPLE BY NEW ZEALAND VICTORIAN COMMENT The following article is taken from the Melbourne Age:— How the elimination of wasteful duplication and competition has brought added returns to the New Zealand dairy industry is a subject that might be profitably studied by those interested in the industry in Victoria. On visiting New Zealand the Victorian is immediately impressed by the orderliness of the farm properties, the substantial character’ of the homestead and outbuildings, the evenness of the herds, the absence of mixed breeding, the capacity of butter factories, the lack of wasteful com petition and the general all-round efficiency of the industry. Some of the industry’s most notable forward steps followed the inquiry in 1934 of the Dairy Industry Commission. Acting on the advice of the commission, the Agricultural department was empowered to define areas in which butter and cheese factories could collect cream, and even specified the routes the collecting vehicles should follow. As an immediate result, receiving depots were eliminated, and wasteful competition, which led to cream being carried past a factory, has ceased. Another provision is that enabling the Agricultural Department to cancel the registration of redundant factories. Many smaller factories have been closed. Most of the proprietary companies have been taken over by the co-operative companies, and 99 per cent, of the butter and cheese now manufactured in New Zealand is handled by the farmers’ own cooperative concerns. Cream is collected every day in New Zealand, resulting in the cream reaching the factories with such little acidity that neutralising is unnecessary, with consequent higher quality of the product. Immediately it is received at the factory the cream is “flash” pasteurised and deodourised, and then at once cooled to low temperatures. Churning is done on the following day. New Zealand churns are generally of much greater capacity than those commonly used in Victoria, and a capacity of 2i tons is not unusual. Cheese is of no' less importance than butter in New Zealand, and its production is as rigidly supervised. Cheese factories are not permitted to compete with butter factories for supplies, and the supply areas for both, as well as for other milk products, are strictly defined. Considerable progress, with marked financial benefit, has been made in the treatment of byproducts. Whey from the cheese factory is invariably separated for its butterfat before being passed on for the manufacturing of milk sugar. Buttermilk is dried and used for a variety of purposes, while skim milk is converted into skim milk powder and into casein. The complete rationalisation of the industry in large measure arises from the fact that so large a proportion of the Dominion’s product must be sold at world parity. The inability to effect any worthwhile increase in the over-all return by artificially boosting the local price has made it necessary for the producer to effect economies in every possible direction. In one large dairying centre £35,000 yearly has been saved to the dairyman by the rationalisation of cream collection. In addition, as a result of the concentration of supplies in larger units, manufacturing costs have been reduced, and quality has improved, with enhanced prices on overseas markets. On the marketing side also substantial savings have been effected. A multiplicity of selling agents, as in Victoria, is unknown in New Zealand, with an estimated marketing saving of id per lb of butter. Substantial economies have also resulted in peace time from the limitation of the number of agents handling the Dominion’s butter in London. New Zealand dairymen are to-day complaining of the handicaps, of the shortage of manpower and of superphosphates. Nevertheless they are persevering with the well tried systems of rotational grazing and the cultivation of grasses, which are harvested throughout the year for winter feeding. Most New Zealand dairymen are served with electric energy. The installation of new electrical equipment in recent years has threatened to outdistance the current available, and the Government has planned the construction of vast new hydro plants in both islands. Altogether one leaves New Zealand with the impression that its dairying industry is far ahead of Victoria’s.