88 Agriculture and the Community). 



I Whether agriculture is carried on as a system of private 



enterprise for commercial profit, or developed as a public 

 service for the community, it will have to face the competi- 

 tion of other lands. It may be possible for a time to get 

 the community to subsidise small holders, to guarantee 

 prices to farmers, or to finance collective farming, but in 

 the long" run the public will insist on the industry standing 

 on its own feet and meeting the competition from abroad. 

 If other lands are more favourably situated for the econo- 

 mic production of certain agricultural products than this 

 country there is no reason why we should produce these 

 at a higfher cost, and so di\ert labour from its most 

 economic use. It would be better for us to concentrate 

 on producing the goods where the advantages lie with us, 

 and to exchang"e our products. That means that we must 

 be prepared to use both capital and labour in the directions 

 where the greatest net return can be secured. I believe it 

 will be found that it is by large scale farming that agricul- 

 ture will be best able to face foreign competition. 



I have already indicated that what we require most is 

 research in the economics of farming. There is no body 

 of reliable evidence to show what is the most economic 

 unit for farming operations. It is not difficult to show 

 that most of our farms ranging round 200 acres carry 

 tooi heavy costs for equipment and management on the 

 possible output. The farmer's time is largely taken up 

 in mere trading which adds nothing to the productive side 

 of the industry, interesting and lucrative as it may be in 

 many instances to the farmer. But such criticisms do 

 not carry us far on the way to demonstrating the most 



