DAIRY CONTROL.

Wairarapa Age, 16 December 1924, Page 3

DAIRY CONTROL.

iHE OVERSEAS DELEGATION

Interview With Vice-Chairman. /

Asked by an “Age’ ’representative whether he could form any opinion as to the nature of the report to be presented by the overseas delegation from the Dairy Control Board, at present on their return journey to NewZealand, and the action the Board was likely to take thereon, Mr W. A. lorns, acting-ehairman, stated that it was impossible for him to endeavour to interpret the minds of the Delegation. He did. know that a very comprehensive enquiry had been made into all phases of the dairy industry, especially these having any bearing upon the marketing of New Zealand dairy produce in Great Britain and elsewhere. The trade interests had everywhere extended the utmost hospitality, and had placed the fullest information at the disposal of the Delegation, and it was certain that its members had had a unique opportunity of acijuiding an insight into affairs that could not but be of the greatest value to the industry as a whole.

The prime aim of the Board in sending the Delegation to investigate marketing conditions, continued Mr. lorns, was to determine whether the methods of marketing that at the present time obtained as the result of commercial evolution, are mere fixed inalterably the best possible; or whether the owners of the produce, the 'producers themselves, could find any way in co-operation with the best of the recognised marketing agencies directly concerned, of effecting improvements which would be calculated to secure greater efficiency in practice, and yield a better net return to the farmers of this country. That was the problem underlying the mission’s enquiry. LOST IDENTITY. Asked what were the main disabilities under which New Zealand producers had suffered in the past, Mr. lorns replied: “Firstly, we have lost the identity of our product. It does not reach the consumer as New Zealand butter or N. Z. cheese, and this country thereby lost due credit for its quality products, and the full cash return due to that quality. For this, the system rather than the individual was to blame. It is a commonsense action on the part of the owner of any line of goods to see that it goes into consumption under its own name, and within a standard quality, so that a definite goodwill may be built up by successive satisfactory sales. Hitherto the producers have been unable to exercise any power in this direction.

“In the second place the producers of this country have suffered becase of fluctuations of priec on the Home Market. These fluctuations primarily have been due to the law of supply and demand, to alternate periods of oversupply and undcrsupply. This* has been due primarily to the system, that has prevailed in the past. Producers have had to take whatever shipping facilities were available, and in the absence of any attempt at regulation of shipment or spreading the weight of shipment, the Home market has been alternately glutted and starved. When prices were low trade interests naturally bought in heavily, stored, and reaped a considerable harvest when the market revived. No complaint could be made against this, while conditions permitted it to obtain, but the net result was that the producers suffered. The only remedy the producers can have is to better regulate the handling of their own goods. “That some portion of these disabilities can be overcome by joint action, I feel certain, but in expressing that view I am expressing my own opinion, and not in any way speaking officially for the Board or the Delegation, said Mr. lorns. “A study of conditions abroad, however, shows that the principle of joint or co-opera-tive marketing, by -the collective negotiating of arrangements by big units for the benefit of individual members, is malting tremendous strides. A remarkable expansion of the principle as applied to agricultural products has obtained of late years in the United States. For two or three decades the fruit growers of California have provided a remarkable example of efficiency in co-opcra-time marketing, for the collective advertising of the product, collective negotiations for freight reductions, and lessened costs, and collective regulation of shipments. The movement has extended now to other agricultural producers, viz. the cotton growers, the tobacco growers, wheat growers, and livestock producers. In the case of cotton, 227,442 individual growers have banded'themselves together' in 13 co-operative marketing associations. In the case of tobacco 259,840 individual growers have formed eight associations for the collective handling of their products. Fourteen wheat selling organisations comprise 43,196 growers.

“That collective marketing is economical is perhaps best proved by the California Fruit G'rowers Exchange, now 31 years old, which disposes of produce worth £12,000,000 annually by means of its own organisation. By handling thus volume of business, it has attained a degree of efficiency which ha enabled it to reduce the soiling cost of fruit from 17 per cent, of the value of sales to the low figure of 1.51 per cent, of the delivered value, this last being the figure for the financial year ended October 1923. Extensive advertising contributed to this low selling rate, but even with the cost of advertising added, their cost of sales was 2.49 per cent of the delivered value of the fruit. This is a remarkable performance, which cannot of course be paralelled by our conditions in New Zealand, but it should be found that there are some points in their experience which can profitably be applied to aid