OUTLOOK FOR DAIRYING

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume LXXXI, Issue 19034, 11 June 1924, Page 8

OUTLOOK FOR DAIRYING

“NO MORE HIGH PRICES.” GOOD PROSPECTS AHEAD, SMALLER HOLDINGS URGED “The time for high prices foi dairy produce has passed,” said Mr A. J. Sinclair, acting-manager of the New Zealand Co-operative Dairy Co. Ltd., at a meeting of suppliers al Huntly last week. The speaker said that he believed that the prospects for the dairying industry in New Zealand were al. right so long as the quality was maintained. There would be increas ing competition from Siberia and the Argentine, but the New Zealand pro ducer could find new markets in the East and in the United States ir spite of the high tariff of 4d per lb imposed by the latter country on imported butter. If the dairy farmers received Is 6d per lb. for their cream in future, that was all they could expect to get. If the farmej was hanging on to his property in the hope of the price rising to Is 9d and over, he was doomed to disap pointment. Two serious weaknesses existed in connection with the New Zealand dai»y- farmer’s business, said Mr, Sinclair I n the first place he was holding too much land. It would be much better if farms were reduced to from 100 to 150 acres per man so that the farmer, with the assistance of his wife and family, could work it himself. Too few dairyfarmers kept a sympathetic cheek on the butter-fat production of individual cows. The first defect would be remedied. Added Mr. Sinclair, only when investors turned their attention again to broad acres. It was depressing, he said, to note the large sums of money now being invested quite unwarrantedly in small suburban shops and properties in Auckland city; but he believed this boom would pass .and that investors would realise before long that the dairy farms of the Auckland province, not only offered the ♦ soundest possible security, but. also that on their further development rested . the prosperity of Auckland city itself. He urged dairy-farmers to hasten this time by systematic herd-testing, and concluded by expressing the hope that the 25 herd-testing groups of his company, in which 30,000 cows were now under test, would be doubled next season.