APPEAL TO FARMERS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 23 September 1939, Page 3

APPEAL TO FARMERS

REARING HEIFER CALVES. A WAR EFFORT. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, This Day. An urgent appeal to dairy-farmers to retain as many heifer calves as possible was made yesterday by the Minister of Agriculture, Mr Lee Martin: who stated that with the curtailment of foreign supplies of dairy produce to the United Kingdom, it was the duty of New Zealand producers to help the Mother Country to replace this source of supply. “If we are to fulfil our obligations to the Empire we must make every effort to increase production of dairy produce, meat and wool,” said the Minister, “and with one notable exception the live stock position is excellent. We have more breeding ewes and beef breeding cows than ever before, and provided feed supplies are maintained we can look to increased exports of mutton and beef products; but when it comes to dairy cows the position is not satisfactory, and in the interests of the nation it is the duty of all to rectify it. “For the past three years our milking herds have declined, and this season we are milking 100,000 fewer cows than in 1936.”