DAIRY PRODUCTION DROP IN 1946

Rotorua Morning Post, Issue 5296, 8 January 1947, Page 6

DAIRY PRODUCTION DROP IN 1946

Beef Exports Four Times 'Higher WELLINGTON, last night. Figures for primary production in the 1946 season show that there was a decrease in the amount of butter and cheese produced, but an increase in wool production. There was an increase in the "tMal cattle population to the record figure of over 4,600,000, but dlespite this, . there was a fall in the number of dairy cows in milk and a corresponding drop in the number of dairy herds. Exports >of butter were 105,000 tons compared with 121,000 tons the previous year. One of the biggest increases was in the export of beef, which was more than four times higher than the previous season. Since the end of the war there has been a falling off in the production of vegetables, and when this is coupled with the lower wheat and oat yield, caused by a baidi season, it constitutes a drop in the gross agricultural income of aborxt £500,000. Qross income was als-o lo\r in the daiiy industry, but showed a rise in the pastoral produce group. A startling feature in the statistics is the increase in the number of tractors in use on farms. These now total nearly 19,000, which is almost double the number in 1939. The sh'ortage of artificial fertilisers, a wartime effect, was shown by the fact that the area topdressed last year was 22 per cent. below that of 1940.