New Zealand’s Exports.

Waikato Times, Volume 121, Issue 20264, 5 August 1937, Page 29 (Supplement)

New Zealand’s Exports.

Largest Exporter of Dairy Produce. New Zealand occupies a dominant position in the international dairy and mutton and lamb trade to-day. No more inspiring chapter can be found in the history of its agricultural industries than that relating particularly to the development of the great dairying industry. The country presents a wide range of soils and great variety of configuration suitable for the various branches of agriculture. An outstanding feature of New Zealand agriculture is animal husbandry on permanent or long rotational grasslands. In fact, nature has abundantly endowed New Zealand with all the essentials requisite for successful dairying. Exports of butter and cheese since 1921 have exceeded by more than three times those for the preceding years back to 1884, when the first refrigerated shipments came to England. The financial return increased by an even greater ratio, and the exports of the past 14 years were valued at £232,000,000 as against £103,000,000 for the years previously. New Zealand now sends more butter and cheese into Great Britain than any other country. For some years past she has been the largest overseas supplier of cheese to Great Britain, and last year supplied the United Kingdom with 65 per cent, of the imported cheese. Farm livestock in New Zealand comprises in round numbers 29,000,000 sheep, 4,293,000 cattle, including 1,952,000 dairy cows, and 762,000 pigs, besides horses and minor stock.

The health of the livestock is, speaking generally, of a very high standard, the country being free from most of the more serious animal diseases.

Although the most distant from Smithfield, New Zealand supplies Great Britain with more mutton and lamb than any other country. For these commodities she enjoys a premium over those from other exporting countries, due to a great extent to the fact that New Zealand sheep conform closely to the popular English mutton breeds and to the system of grading. The meat export trade has played a prominent part in the development and prosperity of the country, rapid expansion following the advent of refrigeration just over half a century ago.