HIGH PRODUCTION EFFICIENCY

Hokitika Guardian, 20 September 1929, Page 2

HIGH PRODUCTION EFFICIENCY

THE PEAK YEAR. REMARKABLE RESULTS FROM fast UR.ES. WELLINGTON, September 18. Many progressive features in tlie Dominion's farming methods are detailed in the annual leport of the Department of Agriculture. The Minister, the Hon. G. W. Forbes, points out tluu the marked development in agricultural research and education noted last year has gained iurther impetus, and the effective co ordination of the practical and scient.fic sides promises to be of steadily increasing benefit to primary producers. The growing appreciation of this aid by the producers themselves is a valuable contributing factor.

“ With increasing competition and an outlook on the world markets which has lately become rather less assuring at some points, it is essential still fur-' tlier to promote efficiency, lower working costs and higher quality in production,” states the Minister. “The Government fully realises the position and its requirements, and is making liberal provision within the country’s resources for building up a good scientific foundation combined with effective agencies for conveying the best knowledge to all sections cf our men on the land. In this work the Department of Agriculture will continue to take a leading part in co-operation with allied bodies.”

IMPROVING PRODUCTION. Some remarkable figures of increased production from pastures are given in the report. The ratio of annual increase in 1924 was 11 per cent, but rose to'23 per cent over the previous live years’, average, while last year’s grass land production was 29 per cent higher and is described as the Dominion’s peak year. At the rate of progress now being maintained, the value of grass land products is increasing at over double the rate it did in the first two decades of this century. The grass land farmer is to-day producing over 40 per cent more products per acre of occupied area than he did eight or nine years ago. Butter-fat has doubled during that period, with an increase of only 40 per cent in the number of cows, and with no increase worth mentioning in the area devoted to dairying. During the past two years, well over three million sheep have been added to the flocks of the Dominion, and the potentiality of still greater expansion through the fact that breeding ewes are now increasing by nearly a million annually becomes sufficiently apparent.

• HUGE DEMAND FOE • FERTILISERS. Sound live stock husbandry and better pasture management are factors involved, and, in the opinion of the Dir-ector-General of Agriculture, the most outstanding feature in increasing the quantity and quality of the grass crop is the application of fertilisers. The large increase in the acreage top-dress-ed in 1927 and 1928 has been fully maintained during the past twelve months. A very considerable proportion oif the rapidly expanding pastoral production is directly due to this practice, which up to recently has been mainly applied to dairying land, but which during the past three years has increased at an even greater rate on sheep country. Statistics are given of areas top-dressed, showing an increase of nearly two million ncres in two years. “ Large as is the area now annually top-dres'sed, it represents only 13 per cent of the sown grass lands of the Dominion,”. states the report, “ and it- is safe to say that there are not loss than six million acres of grass land in New Zealand where payable increases due to top-dressing could be secured. At the rate of top-dressing progress of the past two years, this acreage would be reached within the next decade, with a fertiliser tonnage reaching the million mark and an annual top-dressing bill approximately £6.000,000 or more.” Almost? the whole of the 315,000 tons o: top-dressing fertilisers used last year was of a pliospliatic nature. Apart from the great expansion in the use of phosphates, the time is rapidly approaching when more consideration will have to be given to nitrogen, potash and lime in the top-dressing of grass land. This is particularly true of those farms on which the practice is being applied to almost the whole of the pastures, and where the saturation point ■of- high profits front phosphates alone is being reached, nitrogenous fertilisers, it is predicted, will play an increasingly important part.

The report contains advice, strongly stressed, that stock management practice must be modified to suit the changed- conditions due to top-dressing. “ A close study of the whole of the problems involved in what may be termed modern grass land live stock management is demanded, and until that has been done, and management methods attuned to the new condition are in operation, top-dressing development will be in danger of serious retardation, with the possibility of monetary loss resulting from inability efficiently to utilise the excess feed and consequent inadequate returns from the money and labour expended in topdressing.”