H—3o

SUNDRY PRODUCTS Importations foe Stores Control Board : Functions Ex Food Control On the closing of the office of the Food Controller early in the year, certain of his functions were transferred to the Department. Among these was the importation of various commodities, principally canned and dried fruits, on behalf of the Stores Control Board for supply to Government institutions. The services of the Trade Commissioners in Australia and elsewhere are used to arrange purchase and shipping, and the distribution in New Zealand is carried out by the Department. The bulk of these commodities are for the Armed Services and mental hospitals, though the smaller institutions such as training-farms and special schools are also supplied. All commodities are sold on a landed cost plus charges basis. Bobby Calf Marketing Pool Operations Bobby-calf pools throughout the country have now become well established and through the elected pool committees an efficient service to the producers is being provided. The efficiency of this marketing system is largely dependent on the collection service, and while some pools have continued the wartime practice of eliminating " side road " services longer than was really necessary, most pools are now finding it better to give a more general cartage service even if additional costs are incurred. The lack of collection services in the off season is a problem for many pools with large sparsely populated areas, and the assembly of calves from these areas at saleyards and other suitable points has assisted the position materially. However, it is hoped that more can be done to improve the collection arrangements for calves offering in the off season, both by direct collection and by centralization. The pools in the Otago district which were formed the previous year, experienced a good season's operations and the results were very encouraging to those producers who were instrumental in forming them. A noticeable feature of annual meetings is that information supplied by different organizations is not always accurate, which leads to confusion among farmers. This was particularly evident regarding conditions of supply to the local market and to export. An improvement was evident following an article supplied by the Department to a farming journal. Another matter which has received some attention is the voting rights for the election of committees of the various persons engaged in dairying. This is particularly evident in districts where large numbers are share-milking. The operation of the Westfield Saleyard Committee, which was set up to negotiate the supply of calves to those yards, was satisfactory. This committee's operations have stabilized the pool-marketing arrangements in and around the Auckland area. The returns for the year ended Ist January, 1949, show that 1,014,689 calves were collected in all pooled areas both gazetted and ungazetted. In previous years the calves collected by ungazetted pools have not been included, but as similar returns are available from these few pools (five) on a similar basis to the others it was decided to include them. For the period under review, ungazetted pools had a total collection of 26,679 calves. Of the total of 1,014,689 calves, 974,491 were passed for export. Some 3-8 per cent, or 40,198 were rejected. This is a big improvement on the previous year's figure of 6-2 per cent. In general, the treatment of calves is satisfactory.

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