Broadcasting Now Has Rural Officer

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 15, Issue 99, 22 September 1950, Page 3

Broadcasting Now Has Rural Officer

Mr James C. Taylor, a returned serviceman of World War 11, and the first rehabilitation bursar to be sent to an' agricultural college, has been appointed to the new post of rifr’al officer in the broadcasting service.

Announcing this, the ActingMinister in Charge of Broadcasting. Mr Broadfoot, said Mr Taylor’s duties would be to oversee existing farm broadcast sessions, to organise new ones with a widening appeal, and to co-ordinate sessions into a more effective general service. While the primary aim would be to interest farmers and their waves, the new sessions would be directed also toward interpreting the country to the town, and it was hoped to make them entertaining as well as informative.

Mr Taylor came to New Zealand in 1939 after three years’ experience of English mixed farming in Devonshire and Sussex. After 18 months on dairy farms in the Waikato, he enlisted in the 2nd N.Z.E.F. He served with the 24th Battalion in Greece, and in the 1941 desert campaign; and was severely wounded py mortar> fire at Sidi Rezegh. As a result of this, he lost his right leg below the knee, and was invalided home in 1942.

At Lincoln College be gained both the Diploma of Agriculture and the Diploma of Valuation and Farm Management, and early in 1946 was appointed to the staff of the Soil Conservation and Rivers Control Council. There, as an Assistant Soil Conservator'; he has been concerned particularly with the council’s educational work, and with preparing material for its public displays. Last year, Mr Taylor revisited the United Kingdom, and also spent three months in Canada and • the United States, looking into farming questions, especially erosion and soil conservation.