Introduction

Although New Zealand is a small country and the area of first-class land within its boundaries is limited, its importance in the world lies in the fact that it is an efficient producer of animal products, the greater part of which are exported. With an annual production of over 750,000 tons of meat, over 6,000 million pounds of wool, over 200,000 tons of butter, and about 90,000 tons of cheese and 80,000 tons of processed milk, New Zealand is one of the world's major exporters of these products. It is also a low-cost exporter, being able to ship meat and dairy products to the other side of the world and to compete successfully.

The area of the whole country is approximately 66 million acres, of which about 44 million are occupied. Of this, about 20 million acres have been improved, but only about 10–12 million acres can be classed as ploughable land. On the whole, New Zealand is not well endowed with fertile soils, the area of really first-class land being fairly limited. The capacity of large areas to sustain meat- and milk-producing pastures is the result of the building up of fertility by careful management and regular topdressing.

New Zealand's principal natural advantage in livestock production is its climate. Over most of the country rainfall varies from 25 to 60 in. a year. The distribution is remarkably even, though spells of dry weather in the late summer are not uncommon. At the same time sunshine is plentiful, the combination providing unusually favourable opportunities for pasture growth. As the winters are not too rigorous, animals can be left out of doors all the year, a factor of considerable importance in making possible the high level of labour productivity. It also means that the period when pasture growth is dormant is relatively short.

New Zealand can produce a wide range of crops, but experience has shown that the most efficient use of soil and climate is obtained by a concentration on livestock products. Dairy farming generally gives the highest net return per acre of better-class land where the rainfall is over 40 in. per year, is well distributed, and where the winters are fairly mild. Where pasture growth is inhibited for a longer period in winter, or where there is a greater likelihood of a dry period in summer, dairy farming usually gives way to fatlamb production. In those parts of the South Island where the rainfall is between 25 to 30 in., fat-lamb production is associated with cereals and other cash crops. In the South Island, too, it is generally necessary to grow a larger area of fodder crops – rape for fattening lambs in summer and swedes and turnips for winter feed.

A broad classification of the occupied land in New Zealand divides into the following categories:

1. Steep and mountainous land – much of this is not occupied at all, being either protective forests, national parks, or unsuitable for pastoral purposes. The steeper tussock country has been occupied for about 100 years, although during that time little has been done to improve it with the result that frequently it has deteriorated. In the last decade, however, aerial topdressing has shown its worth, and useful responses are being obtained from trace elements such as sulphur and molybdenum. This class of country produces practically all the fine wool. The management of the high-country sheep run is fairly specialised, the carrying capacity of any individual property being determined by the number of stock that can be carried through the winter, which means that much of the alpine pasture growth in summer cannot be utilised. Cattle do not have an important place in the system of management, but their numbers are increasing.

2. The hill country: This covers an extensive area in both islands, that in the North Island having in general been covered in bush which was probably cleared in the last 30 years of the nineteenth century, and that in the South Island in tussock. When the bush was first cleared, reasonable pastures were established, but these gradually deteriorated, and there were also the constant threats of encroachment by fern or second growth. The dominant components of the pastures were low-fertility demanding species, with the result that the carrying capacity was little more than one sheep to the acre. In the South Island, brown top dominant pastures were the characteristic feature, these merging into tussock country where little attempt had been made at development. For many years the improvement of the hill country presented an intractable problem as, although there was clear-cut evidence that it would respond to topdressing, the cost made it uneconomic.

   With the development of aerial topdressing about 1950 and the generally higher returns for wool, farmers were able to undertake the task more effectively, with the result that the carrying capacity of the hill country has been in some cases doubled. Many hill-country farmers are now able to fatten a proportion of their lambs. Apart from the fact that it produces a large proportion of the country's wool, the hill country provides the breeding stock for the fat-lamb farmer on the more productive country. A large proportion of the cattle are also run on hill-country properties where they have had the function of keeping down rank pasture growth and on the less-developed properties of crushing fern and second growth. In the South Island the improvement in the carrying capacity of the hill country has been somewhat less marked as limits are imposed by the likelihood of dry summers and the longer period of dormant pasture growth in winter. South Island fat-lamb farmers also breed a higher proportion of their own replacements.

3. Ploughable land: Although there is probably over 10 million - 12 million acres of ploughable land in New Zealand, not all of it is highly productive and some is of very limited value. Nevertheless, farmers on this land are responsible for all the dairy produce, the major part of the fat lamb and beef and a fair proportion of the wool. On some of the land of this type the fertility has been built up from rather unpromising beginnings – much of the Waikato and North Auckland fall into this category.

Again, several hundred thousand acres in the South Island cannot reach the maximum level of production without irrigation water. Taken as a whole, however, the easy ploughable country will carry about one dairy cow to every 1½ to 2 acres, four to six ewes to the acre, and where climatic conditions are suitable will produce up to 50 bushels of wheat per acre. A limited portion of it, not more than 2 million acres can be classed as having “versatile soils” i.e., those that are naturally of high fertility and can produce a wide variety of different products – butterfat, lamb, beef, cereals, vegetables, or fruit. The proportion of such land in New Zealand is not high and in consequence land use planning is concerned with ensuring that such soils are kept for agricultural purposes.

In the 40 to 50 years after European settlement in 1840, the New Zealand farm economy was based on the export of wool with tallow and, for a more limited period, cereals as supplements. With the introduction of refrigeration in 1882 a greater diversity of enterprise was possible. The development of the export trade in mutton and lamb gave the sheep industry a broader base and brought about a considerable change in management methods. At the same time the infant dairy industry was able to expand from the stage where it was concerned entirely with the very limited local demand to where it was serving an international market.

Following the First World War the dairy industry expanded even more rapidly as topdressing came to be more widely adopted and with it more scientific ideas on pasture management. Fat-lamb production also increased, the British housewife having indicated a preference for a lightweight succulent lamb. Up until 1914 the greater part of the fat lamb exported had come from Canterbury, but during the 1920s there was a rapid increase throughout the North Island and in Southland. The adoption of the system of intensive grassland farming represented a major revolution in techniques, there being no overseas models which New Zealand could follow. A system of farming which largely dispensed with the plough and aimed to make the maximum use of rapid and sustained pasture growth, came into being in the 1920s, largely as a result of the efforts of many farsighted individual farmers assisted by the newly established research and advisory services. Since the 1920s there has been no basic change in the pattern of production and apart from the checks received during the depression of the 1930s and during the Second World War, production has expanded steadily. Over the same period there has been a marked increase in the production per man engaged in agriculture. At the present time the farm labour force is markedly less than it was in the late 1920s although production has risen by at least 100 per cent. During the same period there has also been a very great reduction in the drudgery associated with much farm work and it is likely that part of the advances in productivity have been absorbed by more leisure.

Though there are many technical and management problems facing New Zealand farmers today, the major issue before them is the availability of markets for an expanding output. From the outbreak of the war until the mid 1950s the demand for agricultural products was such that it was possible to sell all that could be produced. With the recovery of agriculture in those countries affected by the war and the generally higher levels of production attained in recent years, combined with the intensification of agricultural protection, the market outlook is less favourable.

by Patrick Russell Stephens, M.A., Economics Section, Department of Agriculture, Wellington.