THE PIG INDUSTRY

Te Puke Times, Volume XXVIII, Issue 26, 11 April 1939, Page 3

THE PIG INDUSTRY

ITS IMPORTANCE TO THE NATION

The pig is the most valuable animal in the world. He is more useful and less quarrelsome than the man. The pig eats waste foods and millers’ offals ; it roots up and manures the land to assist the growing of other foods ; if given the liberty it will roam the forests and thrive on fern roots, etc. It is the most prolific of all animals, and it matures for human food the quickest. When dead it provides nearly 50 different commodities, from bristles and .leather goods to gelatine, cosmetics, lubricants, fertilisers, candles, metal polish, soap and pharmaceutical ■ preparations all from parts we don’t eat! From the edible parts we get bacon, ham, pork, lard, brawn, trotters, black puddings, sausages, pies, pig’s fry—in short, the pig produces for man in the largest ratio to weight of any of the farm animals. Its fat has an energy value as high as cod-liver oil, and the lean has a greater nutritional value than beef.

Two hundred years ago, Denmark was a land of heaths, bogs, sanddunes and pine scrub, To-day it is one of the richest dairying countries in the world, and in some crops can boast the highest yield per acre The Danes have manured their poor soil to this high standard with natural and artificial fertilisers, in which their early appreciation of the value of-the pig for this purpose played a very large part, They grow one pig for every living human being to help in this work, and have to import a very large percentage of the total food required to maintain this production.

Yet we in New Zealand with a potential production from dairy-by-products alone of over one and threee-quarter million pigs, which, with the use of available supplementary foods could be economically increased to nearly three million marketable carcases, produce less than two-thirds of a pig per head of population. It is estimated that at the market rates current for the past three years, had our dairy by-products and other supplementary available foods been converted into pork, the national annual return would have approximated live millions sterling. For the year ending September last the value of ur exports Avould be under one and three-quarter millions.

From this it will be seen to what extent this valuable industry is being neglected, but what is still more alarming, is the fact that New Zealand’s current year’s export killings already show a fall of over 55,000 pigs as com Dared with the relative position last year. In the guaranteed price for butter lid per pound butterfat has been allowed to cover revenue from a conversion of the by-products to pork, and although this return on present market rates is very real, producers who neglect this source revenue must suffer accordingly in the price realised for their butterfat. In certain areas there has been a substantial change over from butterfat to cheese production, and i although this, seasonable conditions, j labour difficulties, lower milk! production and the large number of calves reared have all had an appreciable bearing on the drastic fall in pig production, it is also evident that there is an urgent need to revitalise this valuable source of naHmial income. The economic outlook for an expanding market for our exports was never brighter, and since Denmark is still our most dangerous competitor in the Dritish butter market, a point which it behoves our dairy industry tn keep steadily in view, is the fact that their pig industry is very highly and efficiently organised, and accordingly forms an important aspect of Denmark’s competitive ability on the English butter market.