ARABLE FARMING

Shannon News, 8 March 1927, Page 3

ARABLE FARMING

PRODUCTS AND PROFITS. EXPERIENCE IN ENGLAND. Dr. A. G. Ruston (Lecturer in Agricultural Economics), recently gave the Hutton Rudby (Yorkshire) Agricultural Discussion his ideas of why farming does not return adequate profits. The men who were making money were the men who had improved their methods, he said. He referred to a farmer who made £6OO from an 80 acre farm, and emphasised the need for finding the best possible outlet for one's products. • Dr. Ruston based his address on the results of his analysis of Yorkshire farms, 80 to 90 in number. He indicated the result of his enquiry,, and went on to say that it was a remarkable fact that during 1924-1925, the men who Avere making the biggest profits were the men on arable farms. Dr. Ruston suggested that the fact that Britain was no longer able to pay for her imports by her exports had no doubt influenced the Government to a large extent in the action they had taken in trying to encourage the growing of sugar beet, and he believed the time was fast approaching when British farmers would have to grow more foodstuffs. In this case he would have to look more to the plough than to the grazing of cattle as in the days of the German submarine campaign when we grew wheat sufficient to last for eleven months out of twelve, as compared with 1013 when a year's growth of wheat lasted only six weeks.

Quoting from the figures available from the Yorkshire farms, of which he had the costings,-. Dr. Ruston said » purely arable farm of 100 acres produced sufficient food to feed 113 men

whereas a grass farm of the same size would only feed 23 men, and in the case of a mixed farm the number of men fed would be 82. In other words arable farms produced five times as much food as grass farms. Then why, he asked, should grass land be increasing and arable land decreasing '! It was because selling prices in arable farms had been below the cost of production and farmers had cut down their expenses and reduced their labour. Was it surprising, he asked, that the acreage of potatoes decreased in 1923 following the slump of 1922, when potatoes which cost £3 to produce were sold at 30 a a ton ? Wheat cost about £9 to £lO an acre to grow. but while it remained at its present price there should not be so much of a tendency for arable land to go back to grass.

The men who were making money now, and who made money during the slump, were the men who had increased their output and improved their methods of selling. It was impossible to get high production unless a sufficiency of money was spent on raw materials such as fertilisers, seed and food for stock, because they could never get anything out of the land unless it was first put into it. Nature did her share on a farm, but unless the farmer did his share too, results could not be satisfactory. Dr. Ruston said he liked to see labour costs as high as possible because money spent on wages generally led to increased productivity. Though a normal farmer has an output of about £SOO. per hundred acres, Dr. Ruston was able to show a photograph of a farm of about the same size where tho output was nearly up to £3OOO. The figures quoted showed fliat whereas the man whose output was only £SOO, spent only £2 per acre on labour, the farmer whose output was £3OOO was spending £4 per acre In labour.