COSTS MUST GOME DOWN.

Putaruru Press, Volume VIII, Issue 368, 11 December 1930, Page 8

COSTS MUST GOME DOWN.

TO MAKE FARMING PAY. Need For Co-operation Urged. “We should get together to see if costs could not be brought down. Something should be done, but I do not know how to proceed about it,” said Mr. F. W. Seifert, chairman of the Morrinsville Co-operative Intermediate Bural Credit Association, at the annual meeting on Wednesday. To show the necessity for reducing costs, Mr. Seifert quoted figures that had been compiled by the Morrinsville Dairy Company, showing the position of the average farmer at the present time. Taking a farmer with 100 acres of improved land and a mortgage of £2500, or £25 per acre, and a production of 150 pounds of buicter-fat per acre, he stated that the minimum costs of running the farm would equal the returns with butterfat at lOd per pound. It would actually cost more than £25 per acre to i bring a farm in to a stage when it would produce 150 pounds of butterfat per acre, but for the sake of an

illustration he would take that .figure as a basis. The expenses for the year of such a farmer would he as follow: Inter-

est at 7 per cent, £175; rates, £3O; power for’ milking, £2O; manure, £100; general expenses (fencing repairs), £SO; living expenses at £3 a week, £150; wages of’ extra labour, £100; total, £625. The receipts from 15,000 pounds of butter-fat at lOd per pound would be £625, the same as the outgoings. “ There is no doubt the country is right up against it,” added Mr. Seifert. “ Even if such a farmer owned his farm straightout, and had no mortgage, the extra profit would •amount to only 23d per pound of but-ter-fat. If the man had the land for nothing he would not be making more than a bare livisg. “ Costs will have to be brought down by 20 per cent. It is no use our saying ‘ better times are coming.’ Whether we are going to get together arid bring these costs into line, or whether we are to wait until the crash comes is a matter for all sections, manufacturers, farmers and others, to consider. It is no use our saying the cause of the depression is world-wide; we cannot put things right in America, but we ought to be able to get together in this country.”