AGRICULTURE IN N.Z.

Hawke's Bay Herald-Tribune, Issue 164, 29 July 1937, Page 7

AGRICULTURE IN N.Z.

Importance of Professional Training BIG CHANGES F0RESEEN

Forecasting some very big changes in agriculture Professor E. R. Hudson, director of Canterbury Agricultural College, Lincoln, in an address to members of the Christchurch Rotary Club, emphasised the inadequate attention paid to the professional training of agriculture students, and urged strongly that assistance should be given to primary industries in the Dominion by a greater concentration on this training. There was every reason to believe that in the future there would be a greater need -of technical guidance in rural industries, Professor Hudson said. The need for not only technical but economic guidance, too, would be greater than ever in the past. Agriculture in the Dominion had been carrying on for almost a century and, speaking broadly, the pioneer stage was passing rapidly, and ifriculture was becoming an increasmgly complex study. 5 Considering the work here and the work in other eountries, it could be said that agriculture was now on the threshold of big changes, and if the people of New Zealand were going to make the best of their opportuuities they would have to appreciate the increasing need for the eound professional training of students and to understand that the work of the Departments of Agriculture and of Scientifio and Industrial Research was of increasing importance. There were many* important problems to be solved, he said. There had not been^ so far, any serious competition from overseas, but New Zealand was 'in danger of it, and could anticipate it by improving the standard of its products. "When we find that for every agriculture student there are about 100 in one of the other professions, I think we must realise that we are getting into a very dangerous position," Professor Hudson said, in expressing tlie opinion that the proportion mentioned represented a comparison with most other professions. "I am not deprecating the higher training of these other professions, but I am emp^asising fchat there is a marked tendency to place insufficient stress on the training for industries and professions which are closely concerned with primary production."