HEAVY TOLL

Timaru Herald, Volume CXLIII, Issue 20761, 23 June 1937, Page 3

HEAVY TOLL

DISEASE IN STOCK PREVENTIVE MEASURES “It is highly desirable that we should have a positive policy of prevention rather than a negative one of curing disease, and with an increase in our scientific staff we will be able to give greater attention to those animal ailments which in the aggregate are necessitating heavy replacement of stock.” This statement by the Minister of Agriculture (Hon. W. Lee Martin) made at the official opening of the Winter Show at Palmerston North, will be applauded generally by the primary producer. A fundamental objective of livestock investigations must be the prevention of disease, the Minister added. It may be expected that as stock population became more intensive the troubles from disease would increase correspondingly unless suitable measures of control were evolved. It was true that the older agricultural countries suffered more heavily from livestock diseases than New Zealand, but so long as our losses remained as serious as they were now, the comparison was but poor consolation for the farmers of New Zealand. In dairying alone it was known that our losses from disease amounted to well over £1,006,000 annually, exclusive of those incurred in pig-keeping as a dairying side line.

The Government was fully aware of these great losses, and had already taken steps to bring them down to the lowest possible level. The farmers of the Manawatu, who had had many examples. of the valuable work done by the veterinary laboratory of the Department of Agriculture at Wallace"v: :, would be gratified to learn that the Government had decided to increase both the staff and the accommodation at that Institution so that the laboratory could deal adequately with all phases of animal diseases. The erection of new laboratories at a cost

of £15,000 had been approved, and inquiries were being made to secure the services of skilled research workers both for laboratory and field research. The Minister added that shortly an expert from the Old Country would be visiting the Dominion to report on activities here and co-ordinate the work. In connection with the decision to enlarge the scientific staff of the department, he pointed out that there were only 60 veterinary surgeons in the Dominion and half of these were in the employ of the department. The Government had established bursaries, and ten young men had been sent to Sydney University and were receiving training there.