Wairarapa Times-Age WEDNESDAY, JUNE 28, 1939. HERD TESTING PROGRESS.

Wairarapa Times-Age, 28 June 1939, Page 4

Wairarapa Times-Age WEDNESDAY, JUNE 28, 1939. HERD TESTING PROGRESS.

QPLENDTD work lias been done by the Dominion Group Herd Testing' Federation since it was establishred in 1926, and by its constituent' associations, amongst which the Wairarapa Association has taken a worthy place, but there is every reason to hope and believe that even better work will be done under the national herd improvement plan, sponsored by the Danj Board, in which the organisation of the associations and federation is now being merged.

Under the reorganisation scheme, the Dominion, so Jar as herd testing is concerned, will be divided into six large disfrie s —five in the North Island and one in the South Island, lhe Wairarapa will now take its place in the Wellington-Hawke s Bav Herd Improvement Association, which will have a single centralised administration. Change /on these lines, under a. national plan which will.be supported financially and m other wavs bv the Government and the Dairy Board, should make in important particulars for. economy, but it is even more important that it will favour a more vigorous and sustained advance than has hitherto been possible towards highei standards of efficiency in herd improvement and in dairy production.

Enterprisingly as it has been developed in this district and elsewhere, both by capable executive officers and by men who have given voluntarily much time and effort to its advancement, the "'roup system of organisation had its inevitable limitations. As the Minister of Agriculture (Mr Lee Martin) observed in opening the thirteenth and final annual conference of. the Dominion Group Herd Testing Federation in Wellington yesterday:—

While we have raised the production of butterfat (per cow) from an average of 1601 b. to an average of 2401 b—and in many cases considerably higher —it will be agreed that we have today reached a position where we are not making that advancement we should be making. Probably more attention has been paid to the dam than to the sire. It is necessary to see how further improvement in production can be brought about.

The institution of the national plan, it may be hoped, will make an end speedily of'the halt, in progress to which the Minister directed attention. Providing lor methodised control of the total enterprise, the plan should ensure steady concentration, not only on herd testing in the limited sense ol the term, but upon every aspect of herd improvement.

Tn addition to making effective war on the “robber cow,’’ herd testing in this country, at the stage to which it has evolved, has at least opened the way to other progressive developments, such as sire selection, systematic breeding and the methodical eradication of disease in herds. An immense scope for improvement remains, however. There is much still to be done in inducing at least a fairly considerable proportion of dait.t farmers” to concentrate effectively in vital, aspects of herd improvement. The “scrub bull” is not yet by any means an unknown factor and there is great need still of persistent, co-ordinated effort by scientific workers and dairy farmers towards eliminating stock diseases. The need of a national campaign for the eradication of tuberculosis in dairy herds is only one item in this category.

The whole of the herd testing and related activities now being brought under reorganised and unified national control offer to the individual dairy farmer an opportunity of making his industry more productive and profitable. It is demonstrated clearly in what has already been accomplished in New Zealand and in other countries that these activities offer an undoubted means of ensuring a more advantageous working of land and stock. The dairy farmer who does not support this progressive movement wholeheartedly and turn it to the greatest possible account plainly is standing in his own light. He is insisting, in fact that his milk or cream cheques shall be lighter—in many instances much lighter—-and his working expenses higher, than they ought to be.