DAIRY INDUSTRY REFORM

Taranaki Daily News, 17 June 1933, Page 5

DAIRY INDUSTRY REFORM

CONCENTRATION ESSENTIAL ONE BUTTER FACTORY IN TARANAKI DISCUSSION BY FARMERS’ UNION. At a recent meeting of the Inglewood Farmers’ Union Mr. J. B. Simpson addressed members upon methods he considered would lead to the improvement of the dairy industry. After showing the necessity for producing the best article possible at a price which would repay the New Zealand producer and satisfy the British consumer, Mr. Simpson urged that this could only be done by bringing “the cost of production to a level that cannot be touched by the foreigner” and to maintain the hold of the market in Great Britain by purchasing British manufactures in lieu of foreign. Britain, proceeded Mr. Simpson, could no longer afford to pay high prices for foodstuffs such as butter, cheese and meat. X)n the other hand production must increase in New Zealand to enable our own youth to get on the land and also find room for some of Britain’s unemployed.” The first step to be taken, in his opinion, was “to make a drastic alteration in the manufacture of butter by the amalgamation of butter factories. If bringing all the cream to one central factory was found to be the best method whereby manufacturing costs are brought to the minimum, then we would be well advised to cut the first losses and go for the central idea. Some method of recompense could be devised by the whole industry, to such companies as have, in the light of progress, in the past incurred liabilities in building up-to-date premises.” “With motor services for the districts not served by rail being made feeders of the rail and proper insulated trucks,” •* continued Mr. Simpson, “there should be no question of deterioration of cream, and there is no reason why the whole of the article produced in the whole province of Taranaki should not be made up under one roof.” The advantages would be, a uniform article under one brand; a stronger and better system of advances to suppliers would be possible; a better system of distribution would come about, as “both producers and distributing agents would know where they stood in dealing for certain quantities.” ADVERTISING PRODUCE. The advertising of Dominion produce would be another matter in which concentration ’of manufacture would assist with a minimum of expense. The question of so many different makes and. brands of Maori names had often been alluded to as a detriment to sale of our produce, and one brand for Taranaki, i.e., one for each province, and one make should go a long way towards an increase in consumption, and should bring closer the elimination of second grade altogether. “Centralised works,”he continued, “should create a picked and expert staff of workers in the various branches of butter production and thereby lessen the visibly growing danger of the demand for high wages and increasing numbers of managers, etc., besides allowing the fullest use to be made of the machinery.” Where it was considered convenient a small skimming station could be erected and operated by agreement between settlers in preference to individual operations. The competition of different provincial central works toward increase of manufacture would give better results than the present cut-throat competition of dairy factories, and no doubt would cause the individual farmer to do his best. Costs of butter boxes, salt and other requisites would be redued enormously as the former would be made on the spot and the other requisites practically landed from the ship to the works. After arguing that the increased returns obtainable by concentration of manufacture would react favourably on land settlement and relief of unemployment, Mr. Simpson considered “the New Zealand Farmers’ Union, by taking a serious view of the amalgamation of butter factories and individually and collectively immediately agitating to that end and for immediate results would be doing the most important action toward putting' the primary industry in an un- \ assailable position for all time. Factories devoted to cheese would not need to instal dual plants, or, if installed, would not need to work up the cream which, of course, would be forwarded to the central works.”. NEW AREA FOR DAIRYING. “The opening of the Stratford-Main Trunk railway for traffic would bring a very large area of - suitable land into dairying, and the adoption of central works would enable new settlers inclined to butter-making to escape the huge expenditure necessary for installing works. The parochial method of to-day has to end. Old ideas must go to the melting pot, drastic measures must be instituted with the viewpoint of the future. The present business of factories producing butter being placed three or four miles apart under different management has been viewed with astonishment by prominent oversea visitors who have publicly expressed their opinions of the huge economic waste caused thereby, yet the leaders of our industry ’take no steps toward alteration.” “When one considered the actions, cross purposes and short-sightedness with which a parochial view has obsessed the supposed “leaders” of the dairy industry up to the present, perhaps it can well be said the rank and file will be content to “muddle along.” He moved, “That this branch is of the opinion that the immediate consolidation, of the butter-making industry whereby that article is manufactured at a central works for the Taranaki province, would be in the best interests of those engaged in that industry and that steps be taken to cause inquiry into the whole question, and more particularly as to the saving in production costs if such scheme should be given effect to, and that it be referred to branches for consideration.” After quoting the views of the director of the Dairy Research Institute in regard to the need for closer real co-operation between dairy farmers, Mr. Simpson said, “We should strive to hand down a perfect system and not pass on such as we have to-day or a thing neither one nor the other.” Paorchialism must be cut out, the benefit to the country and its growing generations must take pride of place and the patriotism of the whole (town and country), capitalist and poor man be put to the test, for it is a certainty that in scrapping many recently-. built factories cheap finance must be obtained to make consolidation a success, and provision made to racompense the probable loss occasioned. Given, a solution of this phase he felt sure the only method whereby butter production could be done at a price untouchable by any other plant in the world would be recognised as that of consolidation of manufacture. Given the production of first-class butter, the food value of which was well known, at a low cost there need be no fear of restrictions upon New Zealand exports. “The remedy,” he considered, _was concentration or amalgamation and aquickly as possible.” Mr. Simpson concluded his address with a strong plea for the transport of Dominion products in British rather than foreign vessels.