SKIM MILK PASTEURISING.

Dominion, Volume 3, Issue 821, 21 May 1910, Page 8

SKIM MILK PASTEURISING.

DEPARTMENT'S POLICY,

In conneo'tion with the recent conference on the pasteurisation ol skim milk and whey, it is understood that tho Government holds that the time is ripe for tho general 1 adoption of some systoin , of pasteurising by tho dairy factories. The need for some move in this direction has long been recognised on all hands, but it is only recently that practicable and economical methods of pasteurising skim milk have been devised, and action has been deferred by many butter factory directors on the score of expense. This is a short-sighted policy, ior tho benefits that will be derived from pasteurised skim milk are so great as to make the extra cost to the factories a. mere bagatelle. It is probable that every dairy fanner who lias a healthy herd, could he have been present at Wednesday's conference, would insist ou. receiving back only pasteurised skim milk or whey from liis factory. . It is a serious defect of the factory system under present conditions that all the milk is mixed up together, and the farmer takes homo to his calves and pigs not tho milk of his own herd, but a mixture of anybody's and everybody's. One badly diseased herd can thus infect a whole district. The careful dairy farmer may take every precaution on tho farm to keep his stock -hi healthy condition, and may carefully inspect all his new purchases for signs of disease, but meanwhile by carting homo unpasteurised skim milk or whey he may be completely nullifying all his other measures against disease and infection. The matter is a serious one. The experiments at Kairanga, and the success met with by tho New Zealand Dairy Union at its factories, have demonstrated that the milk can be effectively treated at very trilling cost. The Department Ijas decided to take the matter up seriously, and though it has wide powers under tho Act, the idea is apparently to work in with the factories and bring under their notice both the urgent necessity and feasibility of pasteurisation. Once this is done it is probable that there will be few laggards, and it is gathered that there will not be a resort. to compulsion unless it is shown that self-interest is an insufficient motive to bring the factories into line. As soon as the pasteurisation or whey was shown to be practicable on commercial lines it was promptly taken up by tho cheese factories, and by the end of next season it is probable that it will have been adopted by all but a small minority. No doubt the butter factories will prove fully as oarnest in their desire to effect this important and urgently-needed reform.