Bay of Plenty Beacon Published Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. FRIDAY, JULY 25, 1947 PIGS MEAN OVERTIME

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 11, Issue 58, 25 July 1947, Page 4

Bay of Plenty Beacon Published Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays. FRIDAY, JULY 25, 1947 PIGS MEAN OVERTIME

THE production of pigs, a subsidiary to the great dairy industry, furnishes a sorry example of the reduced productive effort applying so generally in New Zealand today and more especially in urban areas, but gradually spreading out into the countryside. The latest Meat Board return shows overall a 40 per cent, decline in the output of pig meats for this season to date, compared with last season. That season saw two-thirds of the North Island afflicted by drought, so there was less milk which is the main food for pigs in this country. This season conditions have been normal and it would have naturally been expected that pig meat production should have risen, an expectation made the more likely from the strong appeal made by both Government and farming leaders for a very maximum output to assist Britain at a time when her meat ration was desperately short. In no other field could additional supplies have been so speedily and substantially provided as in pig-keep-ing. Had production been raised by 20 per cent, ‘for this season over the one before, no great surprise would have been caused nor would the performance be regarded as one of exceptional merit. But that production should be down by 40 per cent is a token of a very serious condition. It would be very easy to blame the dairy farmers —to say that they were not pulling their weight—but people who live in glass houses should not throw stones. Few of the community have license to cast aspersions in the direction of the farmers. In the first place the dairy farmers have maintained their output of butterfat with a moderate increase over that of the previous season, brought about by better seasonal conditions. Approximately 90 per cent, of a dairy farmer’s work is involved with the herd and the farm generally and about ID per cent, of his time is taken up with pigs. If pig production is down by 40 per cent, it may be reckoned that the working effort has been proportionately reduced and 40 per cent represents only 4 per cent, of the whole of the farmer’s working time. Actually work devoted to pigs is to be regarded as overtime for which only ordinary rates of pay are received. And in effect the farmer has reduced the overtime given to pigs, from six hours a week to say down to hours. He has eased-up to the extent of ceasing to give 2J hours overtime weekly. He has scarcely been encouraged to do otherwise by the example of others; by a community that reduced its working effort almost 10 per cent, when adopting a 40-hour week. Furthermore, the pig industry has suffered grieviously from a shortage of grain meals and from a shortage that is the responsibility of others in the Dominion, viz pig-housing materials. Just the very slight slacking of effort by the dairy farmer will cost New Zealand over £300,000 this year from the loss of 70,000 porker pigs worth quite £3 a head, and of 26,000 baconers worth £5 per head. That, however, is but the least part of the loss. Much more serious is the loss of meats urgently needed by our kinsfolk in the Old Country. The case of the pig industry is indeed a sorry example of the general slackening of the working effort in this Dominion and its effect upon others in greater need than ourselves. But from an internal viewpoint it would stand as a very minor example of much greater slackening in a hundred other industries.