LIVESTOCK LOSSES

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 110, 26 May 1937, Page 15

LIVESTOCK LOSSES

Value of Research at Ruakura THE COST OF DISEASE Beferring to research work bclng undertaken at Buakura State Farm, the Minister of Agriculture, the Hon. W. Lee Martin, said recently that a feature of the work would be the attention given to livestock questions. "While New Zealand has kept dtself acquainted with developments in livestock research overseas, and has also carried out a good deal of research regardingj its own problems," he said. "It is felt that more could be done with ad-vantage within New Zealand. In this connectiion two points are of prime importance. In the first place new problems are continually arising, and some of these have no counterparts overseas. In the second place some of the major problems which we have had to face for quite a long period are without parallel in overseas countries from which, therefore. we can expect no guidance. "A fundamental ojbjeet$ve of our live-stock investigations must be the prevention of disease, instead of its cure, and it is the cure which in the past at least has featured in much of the overseas work. As might be reasonably expected, available information points to the conclusion that the older agriculture of overseas countries suffers greater losses from live-stock diseases than does New Zealand, but 60 long as our losses Temain as serious as t-hey now are, such a eomparison is but poor consolation for the farmers of New Zealand. The position in New Zealand as so grave that it should not be allowed to Temain as it is, if it can be .altered. 'In dairying alone it is known that , our losses from disease amount to well over £1,000,000 annually, exclusive* of those incurred in pig keepdng as a dairying sideline."