“Taranaki Central Press” WEDNESDAY, MARCH 24, 1937. CO-OPERATIVE FARMING.

Taranaki Central Press, Volume IV, Issue 391, 24 March 1937, Page 4

“Taranaki Central Press” WEDNESDAY, MARCH 24, 1937. CO-OPERATIVE FARMING.

In the course of a tour of the King Country, covering a dbzen different districts in eight days, Mr. T. H. McCombs, M.P., reached the opinion that the Government should seriously consider the encouragement of co-operative farming on certain areas, instead of individual farms. Such encouragement might, of course, take various forms, and the co-operation might be as variously organised. Mr. McCombs at least appears to have made-up his mind in the second respect; it would be better, he is reported to have said, to give the men holdings of 300 acres on a co-operative farming system, so that a group would share the profit or losses, as the case may be.”

It is not easy to overcome the impression that a system of multiple partnership, such as seems to be sketched here, would be unsteady and troublesome, even in the most favourable conditions, which would certainly not be those of State regulation. Four or six or eight men, vdell known to each other and more or less evenly qualified and working out their own system of give-and-take, might make an efficient farming partnership; but it would be admired as a remarkable achievement against the odds. If the State were to have a hand in throwing the partners together and in driving them as a team, success would be more than admirable, it would be miraculous. Encouragement which in the end means financial encouragement of experiments so dubious is almost certain to be a waste of money. The record of a Western Australian venture of the kind is a deterrent example.

As for looser systems of co-operation, farmers throughout the Dominion have proved their value and demonstrate it season after season, in every variety of farming and every operation. So much depends on the man and his neighbours that it is nearly the whole truth to say that benevolence need be the Government’s only encouragement.