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This article was published in 1941
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INSTITUTE OF INSPECTORS OF STOCK OF N.S.W. YEAR BOOK.
RURAL DEVELOPMENT
By MAX HENRY. M.R.C.V.S., B.V.Sc.
Chief of the Division of Animal industry.
I have promised to address you briefly on certain phases of rural development. There is a continual demand for a war-time lead. For my own part, I do not consider that any war-time lead would differ from what I consider to be desirable for peace time, but the war situation has made it essential to speed up the process of what I look upon as an inevitable change in our methods of agriculture and stock- raising in Australia. Although the majority of people may not have realised it, that change was already in motion, but only slowly. Now it must be speeded up. It was rather assumed at the beginning of the war that Great Britain would be in a position to say what she wanted from Australia. It did not take long before it was perfectly obvious that the changing situation, particularly as regards shipping, prevented any stable forecast being made. What did become equally obvious was the fact that many primary products which we imported into this country would no longer be procurable, and further, that many products which Great Britain previously secured from various foreign countries might no longer be procurable and she would look to Empire countries for those products.
These facts may explain to you what I mean when I say that the present war position has intensified the desirability of the change over from one-crop farming to diversifled farming, or mixed farming, or whatever you like to call It.
Now a number of the primary products which we cannot, or may not be able to, secure require intensive cultivation, whereas our major lines of production, such as wool, wheat and meat, which were mostly not produced on an intensive scale, are temporarily in the position of glut. It appears to me that that state of affairs indicates the desirability of intensively utilising our better lands which are mostly in the areas of comparatively closer settlement. I say comparatively closer settlement because that is all it is. There is very little really close rural settlement in Australia. It may be argued that if such intensive development took place. It would be simply as a war-time measure and after the war all this intensive work would lapse. I do not agree. Forecasts are being made that as • result of the war-time industrial expansion, Australia may survive with a highly industrialised economy. If that is so there must surely be an increased demand for the products of intensive farming for the purposes of home consumption. But even if it is not so, our continued progress in Australia, with increasing population depends on a more intensive use of our good lands.
The intensive use of good lands implies the maintenance of soil fertility, and the maintenance of soil fertility depends largely on the utilisation of organic manure, either of animal or vegetable origin. Where mixed farming has been brought to the highest pitch, mixed animal and vegetable manure is looked upon as the basis of sound agricultural economy. But if animal manure is to have a high value, it is necessary that stock should be well fed. In England and similar countries, the residual manurial value of high protein and mineral-containing food is regarded as one of the chief items in maintaining soil fertility.
In Australia, with its mostly capricious climate and dry spells, regular good feeding can only be assured by fodder conservation. Those dry spells take the place with us of the six months' snow in Canada and similar countries and of the long non-productive winter in England. Because those dry spells are irregular, we have gambled on the chances that they will not recur. There are enough hazards in all farm operations without adding that gamble. One draws from these considerations the conclusion that Australia will derive most benefit, if farming is diversified if farming means the association of stock and crops, and if land tenures are of such a nature as will allow the occupier of the land to economically maintain soil fertility.