Politics and the Experimental Farm Response to Training Needs 1909-1919
The 1892 A&P conference had recommended that the department provide farmers with scientific information. The departmental response was to establish experimental farms (one near Waverley in Taranaki and one at Waerenga (Te Kauwhata) in the Waikato in the 90s and 7 more by 1910 including Ruakura).The state of thinking at this time is reflected in the Governor’s speech on the opening of Parliament in August 1906, "My advisors deem it advisable to encourage the application of scientific methods to productive processes in order that our farmers may successfully meet the increasing competition from other countries. Though much has been accomplished in this direction, much yet remains to be done" (Parliamentary Debates 1906).
In the Estimates debate that followed, Henry Greenslade, the MP for Waikato suggested that the Minister of Agriculture should take steps to see that the Department was made more progressive and brought up-to-date. The Minister agreed on the need for a departmental reorganisation, the first step being a system of staff classification (to cater for different qualifications of different people already employed). He added that it was not the intention to recruit any more experts.
The Fields and Experimental Farms Division evolved out of the management of the experimental farms at this time, Edmund Clifton being made its first Director in 1907. He was responsible, along with A H Cockayne, for field trials which first demonstrated the importance of phosphatic fertilisers in improving pastures. Cockayne had been appointed assistant biologist in 1904, became Director of the Fields Division in 1923, and in 1928 Director of the Palmerston North Plant Research Station, then Director-General in 1936.
Discussion in Parliament in 1908 included comment about the limited progress being made in scientific research and the lack of scientific agriculturalists (Dr Chapple, Member for Tuapeka). Experimental farms could not be expected to pay and should be paid for by the State. Massey believed that farmers would have no confidence in institutions that could not make a profit! (Parliamentary Debates 1908).
With improving economic conditions in 1910, the Minister of Agriculture, Thomas McKenzie, brought out the first edition of Journal of Agriculture. It was a monthly magazine with an annual subscription of two and six pence and running to 100 pages. It contained articles on various aspects of management even if this latter term was seldom used, including items about investigations being undertaken as well as official announcements. Some of this information had previously been published in the Annual Reports of the Department (AJHR var).
The search for a training role 1892-1918: With a period of consolidation being inaugurated for quality control measures, and no major initiatives being undertaken in the animal health field, the issues of agricultural education and the need for an expanded research effort occupied a prominent place in policy discussions in the years preceding 1914. From the 1890s, there had been statements as to the desirability of a permanent dairy school being established, and some guarded Government support had been secured, but that was hardly a firm commitment. Nor is it clear what kind of school was envisaged. Was it to be a training institution for those entering the industry and who intended to qualify as factory managers or was it to be an institution providing additional training for those already engaged in the industry? There were also arguments as to the site, but it is also apparent that by 1910 the push for the establishment of a school had lost momentum.
Agricultural education in both primary and secondary schools was being encouraged by the Education Department and its moves were fully supported by the Agriculture Department. The desirability of the experimental farms being used for vocational training was also agreed upon though there was not much discussion on just what form this training should take and what period would be involved. The Department’s unwillingness to look at diploma courses already provided at Lincoln College in Canterbury seems completely irrational from a modern viewpoint, though Lincoln College’s Principal may not have been cooperative in these matters as well (see below).
Plans to inaugurate an agricultural training course at Ruakura were announced in 1910, and the first group of trainees appeared in 1912. From the start, it was clear that training would be mainly devoted to the acquiring of farm skills plus a certain amount of time devoted to elementary scientific lectures. This approach was regarded as satisfactory by most who commented on the subject though there were a few who drew attention to the need for something more fundamental.
Unlike those of his predecessor, Pope’s views do not convey an impression of complacency and in 1912 he was stressing the need for an instructional programme in agriculture and the inadequacy of the work the Department was then undertaking (AJHR 1912). He drew attention to the fact that the existing farms were designed as mixed enterprises, but the need was for specialisation and the existing farms were useless as examples for specialised farmers to follow. Nor was the experimental work a great deal of value and much of it was carried out by men with only a limited knowledge of the subject under investigation. Attention was drawn to the lack of practical training for intending farmers. The Lincoln course was too long and expensive and more suited to those intending to become instructors in agriculture. There was, too, no training scheme for departmental instructors. An obvious answer — to have them trained at Lincoln — was ignored, Pope’s remedy being to set up specialised demonstration farms in various districts throughout the country — livestock, dairy and arable farms as well as horticultural units — though he was rather vague as to the degree of specialisation. The existing examples of specialisation — the viticulture units at Waerenga and Arataki — were dismissed scornfully on the grounds that the wine industry was being discredited.
The following year, Pope was rather apologetic about his remarks stressing that he did not want them to imply criticism of the men running the experimental farms (AJHR 1913). But he again stressed the need for specialisation. Pope also drew attention to the Department’s failure to provide but a very limited amount of advisory assistance to arable and livestock farmers, contrasting this situation with what was done for orchardists and dairy factory managers. His interim solution — training rabbit and noxious weed inspectors to the point that they could undertake extension work — suggested that he had not thought through the problem nor had he made a realistic assessment of this latter group’s capacity to make use of such instruction. Following these suggestions, Pope pointed out the need for farmers to keep proper financial records and proposed that the department should engage some people to help them in this task. He also flagged the need for the department to initiate studies into farm economics and farm management.
At the same time, Clifton defended the approach that had been adopted on the experimental farms asserting that "it is indeed the comprehensive work of the experimental farms that provides the assurance of their value to the State". His perception of them seemed to be like a good many others at the time as that of training institutions at a basic level (AJHR 1913).
The Hunt Commission report: Doubts about the Department’s arrangements to train its own instructors was not shared by the Hunt Commission which reported in 1912 on the organisation of the public service (AJHR 1912). Its main recommendations covering the need for a system of uniform classification and conditions, more flexible arrangements for movement between departments and a minimum standard for entry are well known, but the Commission also examined the set-up in individual departments and it had little that was flattering to say about the Agriculture Department.
Apart from the anomaly of Tourism being attached to the Department in the 1909 reorganisation, the Commission was extremely critical of the absence of any clearly defined chain of command between the head office and the men in the field. There was no one person possessing overall regional authority and all the field staff reported to head office. The Commission seemed unable to make up its mind as to what sort of people should occupy executive positions in the Department. On the one hand, it asserted that the Department needed as head a man with practical knowledge of the workings of different divisions, and added "clerical knowledge alone of little use for this position", a not too veiled crack at Pope. On the other hand, the Director of the Livestock and Meat Division might be a veterinarian but not necessarily so, "his chief qualification should be organising ability" which would hardly exclude a man with experience in administration only. A trained agricultural scientist was suggested as head of the Field and Experimental Farms Division, which would hand over its rabbit and noxious weed inspection team to the Livestock Division, but should in turn absorb the Orchard, Garden and Apiaries Division. No changes were suggested for the Dairy Produce Division.
The Commission felt that moves along these lines would enable a reduction to be made in the number of inspectors, and the number of veterinarians could be cut down by entering into contracts with those in private practice. A training school for those taking inspectorial positions along the lines of that at Ruakura was suggested and those trained could also sit the Junior Civil Service Examination.
The Commission clearly saw the Department’s functions in fairly narrow terms and ignored the whole field of research and agricultural extension work. Desirable staff qualifications and training were perceived as being at a fairly basic level, adequate for the performance of routine functions.
Response to the Commission: Whether as a result of resistance or inertia, the changes suggested by the Commission took some time, apart from the disposal of Tourism. In his first report in 1913, the Public Service Commissioner found obstacles in the way of appointing regional executive officers, one being the possibility of veterinarians finding themselves under the control of stock inspectors (AJHR 1913). For their part, Fields Division staff feared control by veterinarians. The Public Service Commissioners criticism of departmental compartmentalisation was doubtless repeated by his successors, but would indicate some lack of appreciation of the task facing a department carrying out such diverse functions.
A change of government in 1912, with William Massey taking office and including Agriculture in his responsibilities, might have suggested the inauguration of a more dynamic regime. Massey had been the working farmer’s champion — at one stage he refused to agree that Robert McNab was a farmer and preferred to describe him as a landowner — but his intervention in any debate about the Department of Agriculture was not distinguished by any concern with broad issues, but solely with scoring political points. Some of his supporters were looking further ahead, and in the address in reply debate in July 1913 George Thomson, the MP for Dunedin North, was highly critical of the Department and scornful of the value of its large number of field trials (Parliamentary Debates 1913).
He also took issue with Ruakura’s manager’s, Primrose McConnell, views contained in an article in the Evening Post a short time earlier. In this article McConnell laid stress on the Royal Agricultural Society’s motto, "Practice with Science" and emphasised that scientific progress would be necessarily slow as the example of Rothamsted showed. Thomson was most critical of McConnell’s unwillingness to separate the concept of efficient farm management from worthwhile research programmes, his comment that "the man with a scientific training only is usually hopeless as a farmer," and his conviction that the system of training farm cadets at Ruakura should develop to the point that it met most of the country’s immediate need for advisers being, in Thomson’s opinion, a further example of the complacency that existed within the Department.
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