Good Season Gave Land A Boost

Taupo Times, Volume XIV, Issue 62, 10 August 1965, Page 4

Good Season Gave

Land A Boost

By

Settler.

In a recent Government debate, the member of Parliament for Taupo, Mrs Rona Stevenson, praised the Government and the Minister of Lands, Mr Gerard, for 'The excellent manner in which he (Mr Gerard) had settled the land and for the way in which he ironed out the consequent problems of the pumice country." Nature and nature alone was responsible for the lack of grumbling in the pumice area this season.

Rainfall was well above norma! thi^ season and ' tbere was practically n/> summer. The Minister should be grateful for the actions of nature, because after a number of dry years, the country was in poor condition. Without the rainfall of this past season, he could have had difficulty with settlements on what Mrs Stevenson calls "larger units on the lighter country." Mrs Stevenson stated that much help was given toward stemming erosion, fencing and tree plantlng by the Minister of Lands but it is questionable how many settlers were given this help. Tbere bave been statements recently on tbe progress being made with erosion, but tbere bas been little action. If the Lands Department had done the job Mrs Stevenson says it has, a lot of the pumice-land erosion problems would not exist today. The Waikato Valley Authority is entrusted with the problems of the soil erosion in the pumice area, but it is only just keeping up with the conservation plans for the farms soon to be settled. It has not the staff to do much about the country yet to be developed

and the authority is doing almost nothing about the erosion problems facing the older settlers. It is less than two years since the Minister of Lands , has even admitted the existence of an erosion problem in this area and it is just over a year since the Lands Department showed any signs of co-operation with the Waikato Valley Authority. Bren after tbe many years of development, tbere are no accnrate soil maps of the pumice area. Tbe soil conserrators find the existing soil maps so inaccitrate they will not nse them. It is understood a soil survey team is mapping a small portion of the district but this action has been taken after 15 years of development. To date there is no organised utilisation plan, just haphazard devel- j opment. , Certainly there are two ; trial dairy farms at Tauhara which are in the pro- i cess of establishment. There ; are also similar trial farms |(

at Whakamaru, but after 12 years of development some of them, according to a recent survey, are below standard. It is probable that tho trial farms at Tauhara will run for about two years, after which the dairy farms will be settled. This is regardless of the fact that it would Itake al^ least five years to establish whether the trial units were satisfactory for settlement. Figures on the success of settlement show that only one per cent. of farms settled have had to be resettled. By this it could be taken to mean a re-settle-ment of one per cent. in one area of the Taupo district. If the settlers were included that have completely re-settled, together with the ones that have been given extra land, the re-settlement rate would be 33 and one third per cent. It is possible to praise the Lands Department for the money it has speht on land development during the past year, but this praise must be excluded when it comes to the way in which the pumice land has been settled. Settlement is not simply putting farms on the land; it is the manner in which the land is utilised for settlement — that is what the whole scheme should be ludged on. There have been and there stiU remains a lot of problems to be overcome m the pumice country.