Dairy in New Zealand

Sun (Auckland), Volume IV, Issue 998, 14 June 1930, Page 29

Dairy in New Zealand

High State of Efficiency IX four years Auckland will be able to celebrate tlie fiftieth anniversary of the establishment of its dairying industry on a commercial basis; in 1886 the first butter factory in the province was opened by JSIr. Henry Reynolds just outside of Cambridge. The phenomenal expansion of the industry during the ensuing year is commonplace; from the position of a despised sideline, it has become one of the most important and highly specialised in the country.

. In all parts of the province dairy companies during the past few weeks have been closing their books for the season 1929-30, and in practically everv instance increases in production have been recorded; in every case fresh production records .have been put up bv the companies concerned. The in creasing use of fertilisers, ana the j more general adoption of better farm- | ing methods, have been responsible largely for the increase. | Today, New Zealand, particularly | the Auckland Province, leads the | world in the manufacture of butter, and most other products of dairying activity. Today Australia looks to the Waikato and regrets publicly that her farmers do not show the same high standard of efficiency as their fellows across the Tasman. There has been I a big move forward in the direction j of more efficient methods of farming I and manufacturing in the Argentine i during the past year or 50, largely as the result of the example shown by j New Zealand. r It would be no exaggeration to say, j in fact, that in no country in the world today is dairying on a better j footing than in New Zealand. Danish, Irish, and other farmers near to the English market can certainly obtain higher prices in London than the New I Zealand producer, but this is not so | much because of any real lead from the point of view of quality, as it is

from the fact that it goes to a special class of consumer, and is fresher when It reaches the market. Quality for quality, circumstance for circumstance, New Zealand butter can hold its own anywhere in the world, and. should it ever come to a competitive fight to a finish, it would be found that New Zealand would be one of the last countries in the world to drop out from the list of producers, even though prices fell to considerably lower levels than they are today. Climatically and otherwise, this coun try is particularly well situated in regard to the carrying on of dairying. It is in the sphere of marketing, however, that this country has shown the greatest originality and enterprise. In no other industry and, perhaps, in no other country has cooperative effort been brought to the efficient state found in New Zealand. It is this success, largely, that has resulted in the move from the co-operation of individual suppliers tor the manufacture and sale of dairy produce toward the co-operation of factories in one big selling organisation, with a view, not only to cutting out the speculator, but also to bringing about greater efficiency in methods 1 1 reaching the consumer. During the past few years there has been a definite reduction in the number of organisations handling New Zealand dairy produce on its way to the consumer; it is quite on the cards that this trend will continue; it certainly seems that such would be in the interests of the consumer as a whole, for only virile and powerful organisations today can command the highest price and find new markets for our produce in the face of increasing competition and the big buying combines of the world.