DAIRYING TROUBLES.

Taranaki Daily News, 10 July 1920, Page 3

DAIRYING TROUBLES.

RETURNS TO PRODUCERS. ' "INJUSTICES" OF THE PAST. At the annual meeting <Sf Rototmu suppliers to the New Zealand Co-opera-tive Dairy Company, Limited, Waikuito, last week, Mr. A. J. Sinclair, assistant manager to the company, stated that the Auckland producers had decided not to sell'the exportable surplus of next season's butter to the Imperial authorities. A careful investigation proved that for the last two years New Zealand butter producers had' beenselling to the Imperial authorities below the cost of production. The Food Minister had allowed Irish butter to be retailed as high as 5s per pound, but the highest offer they had made to Ne,w Zealand was Is 7id f.0.b., and they had threatened the New Zealand butter producers with exclusion from the English market 'if this offer were refusedFutures were submitted by Mr. Sinclair showing that «it was impossible at the present time for butter to be produced on the farm under the very best conditions below Is lOd per pound, and 2a would be taken as a fair average. The selling of the butter produced in the Auckland province was that the' treatment meted out to ith.em by tile Imperial authorities had been unjust and inequitable, and the New Zealand Government would be asked shortly to remove the present embargo on exports. When this was done there was a possibility of a large proportion of the exportable surplus of New Zealand butter finding its way to other markets. At the conclusion of the meeting it was. unanimously decided to forward a resolution to the Prime Minister urging the Government to press the Imperial authorities to grant' a free and unrestricted market for butter as well as for cheese. Mr; Sinclair also referred to the high prices being paid for dairy farms. He said that so far as butter producers were concerned the inadequate prices received both for export and local butter ha:l forced many dairy farmers into land speculation. The cost of production on the farm had increased by leaps and bounds during the last two years, and yet the price of butter had remained stationary. The action of the Government in competing, with the farmers by going on .to ithe open market and buying up highly improved privately-owned fend to the extent of £11,000,000 for repatriation purposes, had also forced up land values. Prospects for next season, however, were considerably better, both with regard to the prices to be received for butter and cheese, and now that the dairy farmers were to be paid a more reasonable prije for their products, Mr. "Sinclair asked them to study more carefully the difference between value and price, otherwise higher prices would not necessarily mean higher profits. Economists statin that two factors fixed the value of Ijfnd, but he was afraid that in the Walkato three factors determined the price—the fertility of the soil, the convenience of its location, and the number of land agents operating within fifty miles. The production of butter had deereased''by 13 per cent, during the war period, and his advice to farmers for next season was to go in for production and quality.