FARMERS FARM CASUALLY

Chronicle (Levin), 10 December 1946, Page 4

FARMERS FARM CASUALLY

SQUTH COMES NORTH SEEKING THE SUN In the last fe-vv months New Zealand has been well wvitten up by overseas visitors — Mr. Sychiey -Greenbie, Mr. Normau Corwin, Ml*. Hector Bolitho, and others — with pleasure or great displeasure to New Zealand readers. Mr. John Green, director of agrieulturai broadcasts for the on Sunday night gave to New Zealand listeners his inipressions of the Dominion 's farms and their future, gathered since • his arrival two montlis ago. They are delinite and interesting indeed. Farming in the Gouth Island, on some of the linegt land in the Empire, he says, goes at slow speed. - New Zealand, he believes, must in future ftnd markcts additional to Britain for her primary produets, and the obvious safeguard would be to -have a better home market through organised British settlement centred round eertain skilled trades. Islands Contrasted Mr. Green recalled that in an carlier address he had expressed concern over the capacity stocking of the North Island and the neglect and deterioratjon of the less favoured reservo hill country. • / ' fI found that the individual farmer had little in reserve, too; that he was working 'flat out' with the ob.j'ect of retiring Jike any other business man. Profits were often not being ploughed into the land for the next generation/.' said Mr. Green. But. in the Routh IsLnnd, which he had since visited, there was plenty of line to let out, for some of the best land he had seen was being farmed in a casuaLkind of way, and, what was worse, tliat better land was much cheaper than its eoitnterpart in the North Island. In New Zealand the thought was in terms of the climate 's capacity to save labour, whereas in Britain they thought of the soil's capacity to produce food. The abnormally large output per unit of labour employed on the land, which was the foundation of New Zealand farming eeonomy, would not _ necessarily be maintained by producing 100 bushels of wheat or 20 tons of potatoes in Southland. Letting the Sun Work ''Ro," he said, "the best land in the British Empire goes slow while tlie young men go on to the Waikato, where the sun does cverytliing but milk the cow and bath the baby. Actualiy the New Zealander is lucky to be able to do this, because there is little sunkissed pasture land in Ihe world that is not heavilv settled. ' ' Why So Little Wheat? "When an Englishman buys a farm he always asks how much wheat it "will vield, even if he has no intention of growing any. He inay be mad, but he still does it. Ro when I asked the Routhland farmer how much wheat his land would yield and he said about a hundred bushels but jie seldom botliered | to grow it, I must say that I thought he was mad, so the insanity was mutual. But. joking apart — here is land of real quality — a" precision-built macliine ! being run at less than half-speed, a.nd j that will still he running when some of j the boosted and over-driven soils of the | north will be scrap in the hands of their owners, " said Mr. Green. "Imagine my surprise when I found j that you had a more impressive and f practical organisation for wheat re- | soarch than any .of the wheat-growing ■countries of the British Empire; or ■ imagine my pain when I reflected that j vou have actualiy been making dei inands on Ihe world's slender supplies i during these vears of fanxine. 1 have | heard a number of excuses, but, with | the suitable land I have seen, it is quite impossible to accept them. Farming and Markets j Farming depeiuled on three factors, soil, climate and markets, and the last t was tlie most important. JMuch of the ; land in Northern Europe and North i America was only farmed because of the markets on its doorstep; it would : not be eultivated under a system of J agrieulturai free trade. (v.v.,NeVv Zealand*had .no mavkets except ''Uio'se' which v^yij6f^cient ;. export in■terests had aeqiuri.(I,in-.the, pasti Lf, ' therefoVe, the land ' fesources of New Zealand were to be further developed, who was going to buy its produce? , "There is a lot of unreal talk today ' about the starving millions of the . world. First, you do not feel like a ' inutton chop and a quart of milk jliving on the equator. Recondly, a [countrv with a technieally developed j agriculture can only sell to a country ! with an equally developed industrv. 'The less advanced countries technieally are not credit-worthy, nor is it practical !to make them objeets of charity for itlie purpose of disposing of foodstuffs. Britain has been New Zealand 's great i customer in the, past, and your climatic- , ally eheap food lias balanced our | minerally cheap manufactured goods. "Your Only Hope" "If you want further markets you will have to look to other countries ! which still have more power and minerals than climate. That is your , only hope. Canada seems an obvious ichoice. Australia might be wise to do ' more trade with your primary produce, I but having seen her agriculture I tliink , she has spent too much on irrigation to do so. The United States will always itry for the sake of her great industries, but her own primary producers may require a second Ncw Deal if she goes t oj3^ far. - . "No, T have thought over your problems all the time that I have been lo.oking at your farms. The obvious safeguard would be to have a better home market. The only immediate solution I ean see would be to reeonsider your own history, and try some ; more organised British settlement^ and j take a loaf from the pages of British [history and eonfine it this time to Ukilled trades, like the Flemish weavers ; in the Middle Ages. In so far as these j trades might develop on timber and j the surpluses of cereal production it j seems that primary and secondary industries might bcneiit from a better bglance. For the rest, no country can be richer tlian Nature intended it to be."