FARMING RESEARCH

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 11, Issue 47, 30 June 1947, Page 3

FARMING RESEARCH

MUCH KNOWLEDGE GAINED NEED FOR FIELD DAYS This column has been supplied by Federated Farmers of New Zealand. The information given is official but any views expressed are those of the federation and are not necessarily those of this newspaper. Special field days are planned in every province carrying on agriculture as distinct from pastoral farming, indicated Mr G. Stevenson, chairman of the Agricultural. Sectibn of Federated Farmers when speaking at the annual section conference last week.

The great advances being made in plant research generally and in plant breeding were of vital importance to all farmers in New Zealand, but much of the knowledge gained by research workers was not reaching the farmer. It'was, therefore, the aim of the Section officers to have as much information as possible disseminated to producers and they in turn would be.encouraged to use it. Organised contact with research workers would not, therefore, stop at headquarters but would be extended as far as possible. Field days at research centres were one means advocated to give farmers the information in question. SEED EMBARGO At the request of the Agriculture Section, Mr W. W. Mulholland, Dominion President, has been investigating the question of the English embargo on small seeds.

He has reported that the position appeared to be most unsatisfactory. Merchants in England were, apparently, able to exercise too much influence in regard to the imposition of embargoes and other controls and used them to cause fluctuations in prices to their advantage. It was certain that embargoes and other controls were imposed without notice, writes Mr Mulholland. No publicity was given to their pending imposition and sometimes the information was given as confidential. N “This, of course, must be vigorously attacked,” he wrote, “and the whole thing brought out into the open. I am afraid that, at the moment, the protection of the British farmer is being used as a ‘stalking’ horse’ by other people who are grinding an axe all very successfully.”

BALLOTING FOR FARMS Representations to the Minister of Lands and Rehabilitation have been made by the Dominion Council that ballots for farms by ex-servicemen should be held early in the season so as to enable the successful applicant to make the necessary arrangements to occupy his section. To those representations the Minister has now replied that the Lands and Survey Department appreciated the necessity for early ballots, just as the Council had pointed out, but it had to be realised that the Department took possession of farms at all times of the year and endeavoured to meet the wishes of vendors regarding the date of possession. In some cases, therefore, disposal of sections to ex-servicemen was necessarily delayed but an endeavour was always made to hold ballots as early in the season as possible, stated the Minister. SERPENTINE AND SUPER The present basis of the relative prices of serpentine super and normal superphosphate is likely to remain unaltered.

The Dominion Council recently approached the Meat and Dairy Boards and the Director-General of Agriculture asking that the price of serpentine should be reduced to the same level as super, but the Boards have replied that the difference in price is brought about by differences in the cost of production and to bring the prices to the same level would require an extension to serpentine of the present subsidy. That policy neither Board considers advisable.