AUSTRALIAN FARMERS

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 854, 24 December 1929, Page 9

AUSTRALIAN FARMERS

DAIRYING INDUSTRY IN N.S.W. VISIT NEXT MARCH Australian dairy farmers are at last waking up to what Xew Zealand is doing/ said Mr. E. F. Voysey, sales manager of the Producers’ Distribut-. Co-operative Society of Xew South Wales, who arrived by the Ulimaroa this morning. He went on to say that next March a party of dairy farmers from Victorja. New South Wales and Queensland will visit New Zealand to see what the Dominion is doing as far as up-to-date dairying is concerned. Australian farmers are starting to emulate Xew Zealand,” said Mr. Vovaey. “They are top-dressing their pastures for one thing. Much of the good farming land was planted with paspalum, which has almost ruined it, but now that they are using topdressing it is bringing the clover through.

Australia would be a wonderful country for dairying if the farmers paid the same care and attention to their grass lands as the Xew Zealand farmers do.”

Mr. Voysey says that dairving is going ahead in New South Wales and will continue to do so. At present about 70 per cent, of the total amount of butter produced is used for local consumption.

In explaining the work of his society Mr. Voysey said that it is the biggest thing of its kind in Australia, and the annual turnover is £5,000,000. The society is a farmers’ organisation, the bulk of the shares being held by the co-operative dairy factories. However, the society also deals in dried and fresh fruits, eggs, bacon and grain. Everything is handled on the commission basis.

Mr. Voysey is a Xew Zealander. He was born at Waihou and started his career with the Thames Valley Dairy Company. “The development of the Waikato has been a revelation to me,” he said this mornii*g.” I can never get the Australians to believe me when I tell them what has been done. I remember when the country there was almost a wilderness.”