BRITISH MILK MARKETING.

Taranaki Daily News, 20 July 1935, Page 6

BRITISH MILK MARKETING.

The report of the Second annual meeting of registered milk producers for the Milk Marketing BOard of Great Britain, published in this x issue of the Daily News, ’will be read with considerable interest in Taranaki. The chairman of the board, Mr. ThomOs Baxter, became acquainted with many Of the leaders of the New Zealand dairy industry when he visited the Dominion a few years ago in the hope of bringing about the acceptance by New Zealand of a definite limitation in her exports of dairy produce to Great Britain. It is somewhat remarkable that criticism, of the board should be so general two years after the board’s establishment as a controlling authority, seeing that the board could rlpim the support of over 90 per cent, of milk producers who voted directly for its inauguration. Apparently difficulties have arisen through an increase of 18 per cent, in the milk produced. There has not been a corresponding increase in the demand for raw milk, And 29 per cent, of the milk, produced had to be utilised for manufacturing purposes. While the price received for raw milk averaged just over Is 3d a gallon, a penny more than for the previous year, the price received for milk used for butter or cheese making only averaged a little less than sixpence a gallon, and but for a Government subsidy would have averaged one penny a gallon less. In consequence the average price received by producers was a little over ,a shilling, Which is not considered a pay-, able proposition. It is, of course, governed to some extent by the price obtainable for butter and cheese, and it is evident that demands for limitation of imports, including those from the Dominions, in order to raise the price of local products will increase rather than diminisli. That is a matter of considerable moment to tire New Zealand industry, for the increase of 18 per cent, was achieved in a dry summer, and the Minister of Agriculture informed the House of Commons recently that the increase in the production of milk was extending in an unexpected manner. It appears likely that criticism of the board arose from producers who were able, before the board’s establishment, to sell their outputs for disposal as raw milk. They received the highest price, while the factory supplier had to-take what the price of butter and cheese on the open market permitted. The Marketing Board hoped by pooling aU resources to give a fairer return to the industry as a whole, but judging from last month’s meeting there is much to be accomplished before a national scheme can be made generally acceptable to producers. The dairy farmer in Britain has been an individualist for generations, and it was only the hope of saving the industry from ruin that made the pooling scheme attractive. To those whose returns have

fallen rather than increased under that system a return to the old methods of free marketing seems the only practicable course.