8,000,000 Rural Listeners

New Zealand Listener, Volume 28, Issue 717, 10 April 1953, Page 16

8,000,000 Rural Listeners

thing of a miracle that any normal, plodding journalist managed to catch Everett Mitchell at all. Known to millions of Americans as the Voice of Agriculture, he has in the past 14 months, he said, visited 17 European and 15 South American countries as well as Korea and Japan in the course of a 74,000-mile air trip looking at world agriculture, and his week in New Zealand carried him wel] on the way with a new round-the-world tour which would continue by way of Australia, parts of the East, Lebanon, Israel, Turkey, Germany and Britain. You have to pounce ik seemed some-

rather quickly on a man who travels as fast as that, and making its first appointment with him in a rather round-about way, The Listener was left waiting. "Just shows you the misunderstandings that occur when you do things through a third person," said Mr. Mitchell, turning the occasion to good account when we finally got together. "That’s why I’m making this tour — seeing things for myself." A quiet, friendly American, Mr. Mitchell said he started his thirtieth year in radio last November. Twentyeight years ago he was one of America’s first agricultural broadcasters, and for 25 years he has conducted the National Farm and Home Hour for the National Broadcasting Company. This is. now heard each week from 198 stations and has an estimated listening audience of 8,000,000 scattered through every state of the Union. Incidentally, Mr. Mitchell mentioned that this is the only sponsored programme in American radio in which the Government participates. Besides the Farm and Home Hour, Mr. Mitchell conducts a*non-sponsored farm session five days a week on NBC television. Wherever he goes Mr. Mitchell is collecting material for these programmes. For instance a tape recording giving a general picture of agriculture in New Zealand and his impressions of the people was transmitted by radio to America and was due to be broadcast on the NBC network a day or two after his tour here ended. Other recordings about New Zealand’s wool, meat and dairy industries, interviews with Americans in New Zealand and New Zealanders who have visited America under the International Farm Youth Exchange Programme, and photographs and colour films for use in television and screening in rural areas, are also being sent back to the United States. "One of my main aims in making these tours ‘is to acquaint people back home with the problems of agriculture the world over," said Mr. Mitchell. "I hope that some day, somehow, agricultural people everywhere will be able to join together to solve their problems. I’m an advocate of trade, not aid-of a two-way street. We must buy what you can sell if we expect you to be able to buy what you need from us,"

The International Farm Youth Exchange Programme, of which he is one of the pioneers, is Mr. Mitchell’s other big interest on tour. Financed by private enterprise, though the U.S. Government helps’ with facilities, the programme is now in its fourth year and has 225 Americans abroad-and, of course, the same number of young farmers from other countries are in America. So far the Dairy’ Board has had the greatest interest in the programme in New Zealand, but Mr. Mitchell hopes that the meat and wool industry wil] in future send representatives and that the exchange will be increased from four to ten or fifteen. We mentioned to Mr. Mitchell the production problem that New Zealand faced with a rising population and asked whether developments in America might give some pointers to how this could be met. Among the successes of research and breeding programmes he spoke of the broiler industry (which has supplemented the red meat supply with hundreds of millions of pounds of poultry) and cross-breeding of grains, "Perhaps you might augment Government research with private industry research — then, maybe, you could do the job faster,’ he said. "We found that was so in the United States." This, however, was offered more as comment than criticism, for Mr. Mitchel! had nothing but praise for what he had seen during his "whirlwind look" at New Zealand. "I think you have untold opportunities-you’ve only scratched the surface," he said: "Farmers have the know-how and are keenly aware that they cannot stand still. They are trying to make and will make progress." Mr. Mitchell said he wished he could take some of New Zealand’s good all-the-year round pastures to the United" States. There pastures could be used for an average of only four to five months. A very small area went as far as 10 months, but it was not as fine growing, succulent and nutritious as the New Zealand grass. While in New Zealand Mr. Mitchell recorded several talks and interviews, and was heard in the National link programme, News for Farmers. His talk on the International Farm Youth Exchange will be broadcast in 2YA’s farm session on April 20.