FARMING AFFAIRS

Lake County Mail, Issue 48, 5 May 1948, Page 3

FARMING AFFAIRS

This column is supplied weekly by Federated Farmers of New Zealand!. The information given is official but any Ariews expressed

are those of the federation and are

not necessarily those of this newspaper.

Farm Machinery At present Federated Fanners nre making a national survey of the farm machinery and tractor position. Its object is to draw up a factual picture of the needs of the man on the land for increasing farm production.

The survey is being conducted by the Dominion Action Committee of the federation, which is contacting some 65.000 farmers. A. special pre-paid postal card has been sent to all the 43.000 members of the organisation by inclusion in the current issue of the official journal. A further 2000 cards, with accompanying information, are being prepared for mailing to farmers Avho are not members of Federated Farmers. All recipients are asked to complete the cards and return at once to head office of the federation, in Wellington. The cards are designed to secure information regarding the requirements of farmers for Avheel and crarvler type farm tractors, for tractor ploughs, poAver moAvers, pick-up hay balers, side-de-livery rakes and tedders, and other machines or similar supplies. Provision is also made for listing the farmers’ requirements of both plain and barbed Vire.

In a statement accompanying the cards, Mr R. G. Buckleton, chairman of the Action Committee, gives some of the many reasons why the farm supply situation is so had to-day. He lists the war productive effort of the farm machinery manufacturers who necessarily made weapons of destruction rather than of production, with a consequent heavy strain on equipment, necessitating costly replacements. To-day’s high prices for farm produce, he suggests, have created a buying boom in the countries of manufacture, while the Marshall Plan has drawn supplies to Europe. The horse population of every country is declining at the same time, and there are millions more people to feed, in the world to-day than before 1939. But, so far as New Zealand is concerned, Mr Buckleton puts import restriction high on his list. He expresses the opinion that in certain high places there is a lack of real knowledge of farmers’ requirements. There is a lack of appreciation of the importance of farming to New Zealand, and scant recognition is given to the fact that since 1938 New Zealand farmers have been short of the tools of trade they need even to maintain for long their present rate of production. Farming accounts for nearly all New Zealand’s export wealth; if farm production declines, New Zealand prosperity declines, too. If a huge manufacturing concern was faced with a situation which disclosed that more than 25 per cent of its machines and equipment were worn out and if it became generally known that the position could not be remedied because replacements were unobtainable, confidence in the prosperity of that business would be shaken. Yet, said Mr Buckleton, in a statement to-day, that is the exact situation of New Zealand’s biggest industry —farming. Every, effort must be made to remedy such a deplorable state of affairs.

Federated Farmers believes that more help can be given tanners in providing their tools of trade than the present import control regulations allow. To build a full case for further representations is the real purpose of the present survey. Some measure of

success as a result of previous representations has been achieved, but not enough has yet been done: If individual farmers co-operate in making the present survey a success the federation feels that it can make a success of its campaign and more essential farm machinery and equipment and the necessary variety.