MUCH ACCOMPLISHED

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 8, Issue 96, 7 August 1945, Page 7

MUCH ACCOMPLISHED

SETTLEMENT ON LAND

EXrSERVICEMEN FARMERS

Having set as its goal GGOO as the number of ex-servicemen which it hopes to settle on farms of their own, the Rehabilitation Board had ).\v the end of June already accora,-) plished a substantial part of the task } although realising that much still remained to be done says a statement from the Rehabilitation Department covering its monthly review. At the above date 955 loans to purchase farms had been authorised. That } however, was not the whole picture, for at the same date no less than 1582 ex-servicemen were recorded by the department as having gone on to farms of their own. Many of these had merely returned to properties they were running before their service and in many cases > v needed rio financial assistance. Some r others had probably acquired farms, under private arrangement. Graded by farming sub-commit-tees with a view to settlement were 3418 until the end of June. This number does not include those who were placed on farms before the. rehabilitation farm grading .system was introduced. Of those graded 2310 have been placed in category "A", meaning that they were considered sufficiently experienced for settlement on their own account. The remainder have, been offered suitable training cither at agricultural colleges or with private farmers or have been advised of their unsuitability to farming as a career. The last-mentioned are of course ffn a definite minority. During June a further 285 exservicemen completed their farm training, Avhile there were 332 under training at the end of the month. Of these 109 were at Massey and Lincoln Colleges 203 were with prit I! vate farmers and 20 were at the I Wairarapa and Homewood training farms. More than twice as many ex-ser-vicemen have been graded for dairy farming as there have been for sheep. There has however been an encouraging number of men seeking to go in for subsidiary forms of agri r culture such as poultry-keeping horticulture and fruit, farming.