QUALITY THE KEYNOTE

Taranaki Daily News, 8 September 1934, Page 24 (Supplement)

QUALITY THE KEYNOTE

Taranaki dairy farmers, in common with those of the rest of the Dominion, are making quality their key note. If the milk and cream does not come up to the finest standard, they are keen to ascertain the reason why with a vieW to eliminating the cause. Here it is that compulsory milk and cream grading assists. It shows the farmer if his raw material is not up to the required standard, and in many cases the grader’s accompanying note indicates what the trouble is. Though of course v there are a few difficult cases, where the grader and the farmer are puzzled for a while, the majority of the cases are capable of some solution in the farm itself and the farmer goes to no end of trouble to find it It is pleasing to note that while there ate here and there, though certainly at a wide distance apart, farmers who are still antagonistic to compulsory grading, the great majority welcome it. How troubles never previously suspected are located, and the difficulty overcome, as the result of the raw material being graded below finest, was shown at the Maketawa Dairy Company annual meeting, when Mr. J. H. Dombroski said that after taking all care possible he had come to the conclusion that the creek water which was used for washing the cans was the cause of the trouble. He had accordingly sunk a well. Since then he had no trouble. Another - farmer, as a result of a drop in grade, had removed some milk piping which had been placed too close to the galvanised iron roofing of a shed, and he had at once overcome the trouble. Dairy farmers have certainly accepted compulsory grading in the right spirit. Suppliers of milk for butter factories consider, however, that with the present price of hptterfat so low the penalty of lid per pound butterfat- on second grade might be reduced a little.