PIG EXPORT INDUSTRY

Taranaki Daily News, 18 April 1928, Page 15

PIG EXPORT INDUSTRY

PROGRAMME OF RESEARCH IMPROVMBNT OF THE QUALITY. STATE SCHEME ANNOUNCED. Wellington, April li. Details of a comprehensive programme of research to be applied immediately to the pig industry, were announced by the Prime Minister, Mr Coates, yesterday. “Although provision has been made for immediate assistance to the industry,” said Mr. Coates, “by means of a subsidy of £30,000, which will ensure reductions in freight and thus enable the producers- to place their pork and bacon on oversea markets at a lessened eost, the Government is determined to leave no stone unturned in order that the industry locally may be put on a soud basis. It is felt there are many possibilities for improvement in this industry and that there is ample room for such in the methods of breeding, feeding, management and manufacture.”

In New Zealand the pig industry had not received the serious attention that had been devoted to it by oversea competitors. It had been considered here as a spasmodic sideline, catering for a restricted local market, but now that the point had been reached when the export trade in bacon and pork was to be built up, methods must be improved and a standard of production attained, excelling that aclueved by oversea competitors on the British markets. BUILDING UP INDUSTRY. The Government had decided to see scientific assistance to further the attainment of that standard by local producers, and thereby build up the industry on thoroughly sound foundations. The Department of Scientific and Industrial Research had taken in hand the co-ordination and organisation of the scientific investigations proposed, and at a meeting of representatives of the Department of Agriculture, the Lincoln and Massey Agricultural Colleges, New Zealand Group Herd-Testing Association, Dairy Board, Meat Board, Otago University and representatives of the industry, a plan of work was drawn up and this would be put into operation immediately. Four main sections were embraced by the programme—experimental feeding, pig recording, quality of carcase tests, and investigations of the pork and bacon-curing process. The feeding investigations would be conducted on strictly scientific experimental lines »t Otago University, Lincoln College and Massey Agricultural College. Diets, management and breeding experiments would be devised, and these should throw a good deal of light upon what rations were the most economical and productive of the best results so far as the quality of the meat was concerned. Farmers, therefore, would receive sound advice based on actual trials, carefully recorded and examined, which would give them guidance to replace the present haphazard and wasteful practice of throwing to pigs just whatever they would eat. At the same time the full feeding value Of the various industrial by-products would be realised. TESTING VARIED CONDITIONS. Three pig-recording groups would be established in the districts displaying certain marked types of farming. It was proposed that one group officer would work in the Waikato, in a district where abundance of skim milk would be available for pig feed, another m the Manawatu, in a whey district, and associated with Massey College, and the third in Canterbury, a grain district and associated with Lincoln College. In each district a recording officer equipped with the necessary weighing and transport facilities would proceed from farm to farm weighing and keeping a record or -pigs at regular intervals. Visits would be paid to farms as in the case of herd testing, thus a valuable mass of detailed information regarding tne prolificacy of sows, the value of certain types and strains of pigs, and the influence of feeding and management, w’ould be secured. Each officer would be able to deal with about 2000 pigs at one period. As herd-testing had been of such signal service to the dairy industry, so it was confidently hoped that pig recording in a similar manner would promote the well-being of the pig industry. Quality of carease tests were being arranged in eo-operation with local pork and bacon curers, through the Meat Board. Details of the pigs that had been passed through the pig recording officer’s bands would continue to be kept at the slaughtering works, and in the grading process. Those shipped oversea would 'be reported upon by Smithfield experts, in order that a standard of comparison with what was required in the English markets would be ascertained, thus a complete history sheet of the pig from producer to the market would be available for both business and scientific purposes, and the closest possible touch maintained with the oversea consuming trade. Other detailed particulars would be obtained. PROBLEMS OF BACON CURERS. Investigations already were tentatively in process to assist bacon curers in a number of problems affecting their local trade. The popular demand for a mild-cured bacon had been made more difficult to comply with, as the result of the prohibition of the use of boric acid, or its compounds, in conection with bacon curing. Considerable concern had been caused curers owing to the difficulty now experienced in ensuring that their bacon and ham would not deteriorate in quality more rapidly than had hitherto been the case. It was hoped that as a result of work now being carried out the difficulties in that direction would soon be overcome. Throughout the investigations the economic aspects w'ould be under the continual supervision of the farm economies branch of the Department of Agriculture, as it was realised that whatever practices of breeding, feeding and management were devised, they must be along sound lines to be successful, and to be worthy of recommendation to farmers. “This summary,” said the Prime Minister, “will serve to indicate that the Government views the development of the bacon and pork industry as one of great potential value to the Dominion, and proposes to do everything possible, in co-operation with those most directly concerned, to ensure that the foundations of the industry will be.

soundly laid along such scientific lines as will be productive of an output of unexcelled quality.”