URGENT NEED

Waikato Times, Volume 126, Issue 21096, 24 April 1940, Page 6

URGENT NEED

BUTTER FOR BRITAIN APPEAL TO PRODUCERS (By Telegraph.—Press Association) DANNEVIRKE, Wednesday An appeal to the patriotism of the ! farmers of the Dominion was made jby Mr R. B. Tennent, Director of ! Primary Production, at a meeting in ; Dannevirke yesterday, to grow more i hay, ensilage and turnips to reverse ! the tendency for dairy cow numbers j to decline, and to produce more butterfat as their essential war effort. This could be done most rapidly, he said, by improving the supplementary I feed provision, and after that by bet- | ter general management and by in- | creasing the size of herds, in the first j instance by culling fewer cows and ! then by saving more calves. Before making the appeal Mr Tennont had pointed out that owing to ; Britain’s foreign sources of imported i butter being either completely cut off j or threatened, New Zealand farmers j had the opportunity as never before jof showing practical patriotism by i producing every possible ounce of j butterfat, in the knowledge that the ! civilians of Britain and our armies ! overseas could absorb more than was j available for them in 1938 New Zea- ! land supplies just over half the but- ! te: used by Britain that came from : the Empire. The sources of foreign supplies now cut off or threatened amounted to 98 per cent of such supplies, being 44 per cent of the total consumption of the United Kingdom. There was little doubt that the primary resources of the Empire would be strained to the uttermost to meet the position in Britain.