I move as an unopposed motion—

That the House at its rising—

1. (1) on Wednesday, 22 May, adjourn until Friday, 24 May, at 10 a.m.; and
2. (2) on Thursday, 30 May, adjourn until Monday, 3 June, at 2.15 p.m.

I second.

Agreed to.

Mr. Chairman, when business was suspended last night I was discussing the changes that have already been effected in the Department of Agricultural Technical Services and I was discussing the great shortage of officials that still exists in that Department. I also mentioned the fact that as far as extension officers were concerned the hon. the Minister bad told us last year that he would very much like to see the number of these officials being doubled. The shortage of technicians and extension officers is creating a critical position in the agricultural industry and because of this our agriculture is making very slow headway. There is a shortage in all spheres; not much progress is being made in regard to soil conservation. The shortage in all branches of agriculture remains so acute that progress is too slow. The little progress that was made last year is due to the fact that we on this side of the House have pointed out the shortcomings in this regard every year. We will continue to do so. I believe that if we again discuss this question this year the hon. the Minister will possibly realize in the near future that we do discuss these questions every year and I hope that he will then appoint more officials. I want to quote the following from the Report of the Secretary for Agricultural Technical Services for 1961-2—

They attribute this to the fact that there are an insufficient number of field officers to convey the necessary information to the farmers. We do have periodicals and use is made of the radio to keep the farmers informed of all the progress that is made through the medium of research and so forth. But this is not sufficient. The fact remains that the knowledge that is gained does not reach the farmers. I believe that the only way in which they can obtain this knowledge is to appoint more officials. In this way they will be given that information far sooner and will be able to make use of it.

A meeting was held in the Boland last year in this connection at which the following was said [Translation]—

The point that I want to make is if we had the correct information, people would not plant the wrong trees there and those holdings would then not become uneconomic holdings—

From this we see how necessary it is to have these officials but the requests could not be complied with because the necessary officials were not available. Because of this fact, we remain behind; we do not make the progress that we should make.

I spoke about soil conservation just now and I want to say something further in this regard. The soil conservation works are also lagging behind. We are not keeping pace with developments. Two years ago we discussed soil conservation in this House and at that stage we read what Dr. Ross, the then Director of Soil Conservation, had to say—

We then discussed this matter and pointed out how soil erosion jeopardized the future existence of our people. We discussed this matter in the House and one of the hon. members opposite replied and quoted the first part of what Dr. Ross had to say—“the present tempo of soil lost could be compared with the total destruction of from 100,000 to 200,000 morgen every year, and it increases every year”, From this he concluded that the country ran the risk of not being able to produce the necessary food by the end of the century. But the hon. member opposite took that quotation and read only part of it. He only read this—

Instead of “planting practice”—

The hon. member quoted only a small portion of what was said and he then maintained that we had no confidence in the farmers of South Africa to produce the food required by the country. That was a completely wrong interpretation of what we said at the time. We stated emphatically that if we did not put a stop to soil erosion, we would not be able to produce the food that we would need to feed our people towards the end of the century. It had nothing to do with the manner in which the farmers are farming to-day. It was the hon. member for Christiana (Mr. Wentzel) who made this statement. He put the matter completely wrongly.

What did the United Party do?

The United Party put this Act on the Statute Book and if the United Party had been in power to-day, we would not have had the position that we have to-day. I want to point out again what Mr. Van der Merwe had to say. He said that 400,000,000 tons of our best soil was being lost every year. The reason for this is that we do not have sufficient people to apply soil conservation properly.

Does it not happen on your farm?

Yes, it does. I try to combat it as far as I can and I believe that the hon. member does the same, but there are many people who have not yet done so, many people who have not had the opportunity to do so, many people who do not have the knowledge, many people who do not have the necessary information. It is for those people that we ask that more officials should be appointed to guide them and to render the necessary services for them so that they can do that work. In the latest Annual Report of the Department of Agricultural Technical Services we find the following—

Why did you close all the agricultural schools?

My hon. friend simply cannot think any further than the war period. The fact is that we have now had 15 years, years of prosperity, and there is no excuse for the Government to-day that we are still experiencing a shortage of the necessary officials. The report goes on to say—·

The application of soil conservation measures not only contributes towards the prevention of soil losses which are still occurring on an alarming scale; it also enables our farmers to withstand the effects of drought more effectively. It is becoming increasingly evident for the farmers and the State alike that investment in conservation farming brings greater and more enduring advantages in the long run than an emergency aid scheme.

That is what the report says, and it is quite right. We must work more quickly to ensure that soil conservation and the neglect of our soil is combated and prevented.

I also want to know from the hon. the Minister if progress has been made in the combating of the caterpillar plague which assumed such tremendous proportions in the north-west this year. It rained there quite heavily in the month of February but the caterpillars are such a problem that although the drought there has been broken those people are now not much better off than they were before. I also want to say something in connection with the outbreak of locusts in the north-west as well. We did not see locusts for a number of years but this year there was a fairly large outbreak of locusts in the northwest. The locusts have increased to such an extent that there are large swarms of them there and large areas of grass have been completely destroyed. The number of officials who were sent there was however not adequate to combat the locusts in the north-west. I know of one case in which I myself was involved where one official was available for 100,000 morgen. Hon. members will understand how impossible it was for him to combat the locusts and to spray such a large area. There was great dissatisfaction on the part of those people there because the Government did not want to provide the farmers with sprays or chemicals, under the supervision of the officials, to help to kill the locusts. I want to quote now from the Burger of that time [Translation—

Our correspondent at Strydenburg reports that great dissatisfaction prevails amongst the farmers because of the manner in which the locust plague is being combated. They regard the organization as being inefficient and a waste of money. When the farmers themselves exterminated the locusts, they had far more success. Large swarms are now being permitted to hatch and they are not being killed immediately. The land over which these locusts travel is denuded of all vegetation.

I myself was there and I too say that the organization was inefficient. I saw one light truck being used in that area and this truck had to fetch its fuel and sprays more than 50 miles away from where it was operating. The van would pick up five bags of chemicals which was used in less than a day and then the van had to return for more. There were inadequate stocks in the depots. On the first occasion they did not give the driver any extra petrol. He had to fill up his truck, drive 50 miles and start spraying and then return before he had finished spraying in order to fill up again with petrol. At a later stage they gave the driver a drum which lasted him for three days. The last depot was too far away and proper control was not exercised. Because of this fact a large number of the locusts were able to fly away to start breeding elsewhere and when the breeding time comes round again we can expect a considerable outbreak of locusts. I feel that the administration was not at all efficient. I know of one case where the man doing the work was so old that he could hardly see but nevertheless he was there as the chief locust officer because that was what he had done previously. The safest and the most effective manner would have been for the Department to assist the farmers by providing them with sprays with which to kill the locusts under the supervision of the locust officer. If this had been done, the locusts would have been destroyed a long time ago. If it were not for the policy of the hon. the Minister to appoint only those people who are good Nationalists, better results would perhaps be achieved. If that is his policy I hope that he will change it. [Time limit.]

I must say immediately that I was surprised at the attitude of the hon. member for Gardens (Mr. Connan) because he started by congratulating and thanking the hon. the Minister for the reorganization of the Department of Agricultural Technical Services. It makes one wonder whether something has not perhaps gone wrong in the meantime because when one thinks back to the start of this Session one remembers that the hon. member moved a motion asking for the resignation of the Ministers of Agriculture.

I thanked the officials.

No the hon. member is now trying to suggest that the first motion that asked for the resignation of the Ministers was actually moved on the instruction of his party, but last night the hon. member had no instruction in this regard and he spoke as he felt and gave us a reflection of the true position in the Department of Agricultural Technical Services and of the wonderful successes that have been achieved. But when the hon. member started criticizing various aspects of policy, the picture of success achieved by the hon. the Minister became more and more attractive. The hon. member made it clear that the hon. Minister has to make do with very few officials. His whole theme was that the hon. the Minister has to undertake this gigantic job of work even though there is a great shortage of officials. What is the task of the hon. the Minister of Agricultural Technical Services? It is to give guidance and to do research. And what has been the result of that research the guidance that has been given by the Department? As it happens, the previous speech of the hon. member—he mentioned the quotation that I had made on a previous occasion—was based on what Dr. Ross had said; that we would not be able to produce sufficient food towards the end of this century. That was the attitude that he adopted. And then the hon. member argued that our food production was lagging behind.

In what respect was there deterioration?

The hon. member spoke about the deterioration of our soil and lack of information. What is the position? And this is the compliment that the hon. member paid the hon. the Minister—that instead of there being a shortage, the production of most agricultural products has more than doubled. That is the success that has been achieved.

Is that due to the Minister of to the farmers?

His whole argument was devoted to the extension services and research, It is the farmers who, with the assistance of the extension services and research and the guidance of the Department, have achieved that success. The hon. member for Drakensberg (Mrs. S. M. van Niekerk) will I am sure admit that a great role is played by the Department, for example, in connection with hybridized maize of which we had such a large crop.

The Mostert maize.

The hon. member knows far better. That success was achieved by the Department. When the hon. member talks about shortages, he should prove to us the damage that has been suffered in connection with the production of crops and how there has been a deterioration in this production. Then he would be able to talk about the shortage of officials. But let us imagine that the argument of the hon. member that there is deterioration is correct, although none of our figures prove it. Let us imagine that he is correct then we must immediately try to imagine how these additional officials are going to be obtained by the Department. We have a total population of about 16,000,000 people and 3,000,000 Whites have to control and govern those people. After all the measures that have already been taken, the only way to draw officials will be to increase salaries. A general increase of 5 per cent has been brought about in salaries. Let us imagine that the Department of Agricultural Technical Services were to receive permission to increase salaries further in order to attract staff. Then that staff would have to be drawn from the private sector. What will then be the position? The other Departments will also have to increase salaries to prevent their officials from leaving. The result will be that the low grade ore mines will have to close and the industries that are subsidized to-day will lose all their employees unless they increase salaries as well. Let us deal with this sector directly. Take the sector that draws the people who have had training in agricultural technical services. These are the co-operatives, and the artificial fertilizer factories which employ these people to a large extent. They will also have to increase their salaries. What will be the result? It will mean an increase in production costs. Did the hon. member consider that aspect before discussing this matter so glibly? These people have to be drawn from somewhere. What will happen finally will be that they will have to be drawn from the agricultural sector, the developed section of the agricultural population. A large number of people are already moving to the cities from the rural areas. One will have to obtain these officials from that sector. By increasing all those salaries one will have the spiral of increased living costs in one’s entire sector. Far more harm will be done to agriculture because that spiral of increasing production costs has been set in motion. [Time limit.]

The hon. member for Christiana (Mr. Wentzel) has mentioned that the hon. Minister has much to do regarding research and I want to stress that although the hon. Minister is provided with countless research departments, covering almost our entire primary production, at an annual cost of something like R2,000,000, very few of the problems that confront farmers are taken notice of. Very few farmers are satisfied with the research that is being carried on under the Minister. The hon. member for Somerset East (Mr. Vosloo) has interjected, but he knows that the Minister’s departmental annual report speaks of drought conditions, fodder banks and things of that nature, but there is no mention of a remedy for the poisonous plants that spring up after rains and the caterpillar pests that infest the new growth after we have had rains. Nothing is done to assist the farmer to rehabilitate himself after droughts. The hon. member for Somerset East’s orchards must have been visited by the moth that stings and destroys our fruit. No solution whatever has been found to combat this particular moth. Thousands of pounds of our fruit are lost. You cannot even see this month, because it comes at night. I suppose the farmers must catch the moths and then poison them and then perhaps the Department may take some notice and try to introduce a remedy.

I want to stress particularly the Karoo “rusper”. Last year the “Karoo-rusper” swept through the entire Karoo, it destroyed the vegetation right down to its roots, and when droughts followed the stock suffered tremendously on account of the Karoo bush having entirely disappeared. Farmers have repeatedly made representations to the Government to investigate means of combating this pest or introducing some system of biological control. The hon. member for Somerset East can look through the annual report and he will not find mention of any endeavour to control this pest. He will find here numerous scientific articles published by the officers of the Department, and not one of these articles deals with the “ruspers” in respect of which continuous representations have been made to the Minister. The farmers maintain that very little research has been undertaken as regards the caterpillar.

You are wrong.

What evidence has the hon. member got that I have not? I am guided by the literature presented to us, and in this report, the hon. member will find that no attempt has been made to combat the caterpillar pest. Farmers have suffered tremendous losses. We know that the Karoo is the home of the merino sheep, it is the cradle of that Industry, and I assert that millions of pounds in value of wool have been lost in the last few years on account of the depredations of these “ruspers”. The country cannot afford to lose this money. It is on that account that I want to stress the importance of the Minister doing something in regard to this pest. I imagine that the caterpillars are above the control of the Minister and his hardworking Department. Our shrubs and trees are destroyed over hundreds of morgen, by caterpillars, and when you ask the Department to come and assist, the reply is that it is only a seasonal condition that has brought this about, and when the seasons change the caterpillars of course will disappear. So the farmers must look forward to unfavourable seasons in which to recoup their losses, whilst in the meantime the Government does nothing. I appeal to the Minister to delegate some of his brilliant scientists to do research into the caterpillar plague, with a view to discovering some means of controlling it biologically. All the pests have enemies and we only have to propagate the enemies to rid the country of such pests. Our scientists have gained world fame through their ability to cope with our various plagues and pests, and I have no doubt that given the time, and given that special task, they will find a solution for this caterpillar pest which is afflicting the Karoo. The Karoo bush is the stable foliage of the Great Karoo and it extends over hundreds of thousands of morgen and it is a most important area. The farmers’ associations have repeatedly put up these appeals to the Minister, but we have received no reply as to how the Minister is endeavouring to cope with this pest, or if he has taken any notice of it at all. I regret to have to bring the matter up here. We should not be obliged to do so, but under the circumstances we have to. I hope the Minister will pay more attention to research in regard to some of our major plagues. I do not want to say too much about jointed cactus, but that is also a plague that the Minister is not applying his mind to. The Minister should know that jointed cactus can never be eradicated except by biological control. Although vast quantities of poison is used every year, the area under jointed cactus extends. I would like to see the Minister introduce a map showing the infected areas, and he will find each year how the infection spreads, and I should also like him to show the areas which are threatened with its infection so that people can be alerted to this menace. We have seen jointed cactus growing on rockeries in gardens. People are unaware of how dangerous this plague is. The Minister has tried to control this plague and he has found that poisoning is more satisfactory, but he must remember that the problem is to find the small joints. It is a plant that begins to spread when it is only a few weeks old. It is the joints which you cannot find to destroy which constitute a menace because they are spread by the stock and streams and infest the country. I claim that the Minister’s Department knows very little about jointed cactus. One of his head officials was astounded when I told him that jointed cactus does not thrive on ploughed land. He said: “Good God, is that the reason why we could not get it to grow on our experimental plots?” There are several things which militate against the growth of jointed cactus and those things have to be explored. Cochineal was introduced and it did splendid work until its toxic effect was lost, and I claim that if the Minister had research undertaken in Brazil, where this pest originated, he may find that there are several types of natural enemies which control this pest, and it would be of enormous assistance to us if the Minister would introduce them. [Time limit.]

I am very sorry to see that the present mentality of the United Party is still the same as it was in the days of Strauss. They have not yet learnt anything nor are they following what is going on to-day. The hon. member for Christiana (Mr. Wentzel) told us about the wonderful progress in production but I think that it will do them good to go to the agricultural colleges to see the wonderful work that is being done there. I want to discuss the question of wool and more particularly the breeding of sheep. I want to take Grootfontein as an example. One cannot do research into wool without having a wool-bearing sheep and this is where Grootfontein is doing such wonderful work. During the time when we did not import rams from Australia we did wonderful work to improve the quality of our wool There are a few points that we have lost sight of and which we are revising to-day. One of these is the stock formation of the breeding herd. We were inclined to cultivate the small staple wool. It is a recognized fact throughout the world to-day that this is the most important factor that one has to have in a stud sheep. Here Grootfontein has taught us an important lesson in that by means of the rams that they imported from Australia they have again given us something with which to restore that stock formation that we lost. There is another point that they are dealing with—and we are grateful to them for it—and that is to improve the hind legs of our sheep. There is another matter to which they are giving their attention to-day and that is fertility. There was a time when it was said that the merino sheep was not fertile, but if one consults the fertility tests at Grootfontein one will find that this was due to wrong breeding and that by means of selection one is able to restore fertility. I also investigated their studbook system very closely, and it is unique. It is perhaps the only one of its kind in the world. In pairing the ewe and the ram, they give a full description of the ewe and of the ram and of the wool yield, including the wool yield of the ram. They do this from generation to generation and when they consult their studbook they can see up to the fourth generation the weight of the sheep, the weight of the wool that it produces, the weight of the ewe and also the build of the sheep and whether it has good folds around its neck. Stud sheep must have folds. There was too little wool on our sheep in the days when we said that a sheep should have no folds. I want to give Grootfontein a great deal of credit for the work that is being done there.

There are another few points that I want the hon. the Minister to consider. When the Grootfontein sheep are auctioned, they are not given a proper chance. One has the large pedigree auctions and one has the auctions at the agricultural colleges. While the pedigree breeder advertises his sheep very well, I am afraid that the advertising of the agricultural colleges is not effective. When they appoint a man to sell the sheep, they do not have an auctioneer who has a number of connections but they find the cheapest man. Grootfontein and the other colleges lose a great deal of money because they do not sell their sheep properly. I am sure that if some of these sheep were sold by public auction they would fetch better prices. This is something that I would like the hon. the Minister to investigate to see whether a better system cannot be found to advertise the sheep more extensively and to sell them in such a way that these colleges will be able to compete on a sound basis with other breeders.

We have also heard about caterpillar research. It appears to me that in this regard our hon. friends on the other side are also fast asleep because research into caterpillars has been done at Grootfontein for many years now. It has not always been a success. They have changed their methods from time to time but at the moment they are doing this research and there are people who have made a special study of caterpillars. Hon. members must not suggest that nothing is being done. It is their old way of trying to make political capital in order to try to come into power again but I am convinced that they will never succeed. We remember the Strauss policy, when they commandeered our sheep. It was the United Party which took £5,000,000 from the farmers and paid it into the Treasury instead of giving the money back to the farmers, and it was the National Party which repaid part of that money to the farmers. They must get away from that habit which they have of doing nothing but criticizing. As far as the Karoo caterpillar is concerned, a great deal of research is being done and this is a very difficult matter. I admit that the position is different now to what it was previously. Previously the caterpillar only ate the leaves of the bushes and when it rained the leaves grew again, but there is another sort of caterpillar there now which even eats the bark on the bushes, and this is a very serious matter. I can compare these caterpillars with the United Party which eats off all the bark and allows the bush to die.

As far as the locust plague is concerned it is true that one does not have sufficient officials available to be able to undertake this work everywhere, but generally speaking the locust plague is well under control and sound research is being done. A few of my friends there should take a course at Grootfontein. The research into locusts and particularly the brown locust has progressed very far. Instead of criticizing, we should rather encourage these people in their work. As far as the veterinary officers are concerned, the Government has spent money on the erection of new builings at Grootfontein and there are people there who are making a special study of Karoo diseases instead of everything having to be done at Onderstepoort. In this way we will be able to find a solution to these problems far sooner than was the case in the past. [Time limit.]

The hon. member for Cradock (Mr. G. F. H. Bekker) has gone so far back that I though he would go right back to Lord Charles Somerset. However, I think he would support this side of the House in its request for more technicians, professional officers and scientists. The hon. member for Christiana (Mr. Wentzel) has suggested ways of tempting them to take up this work. If salaries are the trouble, let us do something about it, and if that is the case the Government is responsible. However, I want to deal with just a few items under this Vote. First of all, I want to deal with “G I should like to draw the Minister’s attention to the extent infection by stock in certain parts of the country has spread. It has got so bad in some parts that calving has been reduced to an absolute minimum. Milk supplies have been seriously reduced and the calving rate is so low that breeding has been brough to a standstill. Under “K” the Minister has all the facilities at the various experimental stations like Fort Grey and Bathurst for carrying out research in respect of the development of horticulture and the growing of vegetables. There are certain of those areas which lend themselves admirably to the production of such crops, and it is not the first time that I have asked that this should be investigated. I want to ask the Minister to set something afoot in that direction. Why should all the fruit consumed in that part of the country be dragged 1,100 miles by rail, when a product of as good quality can be grown there? Under “P” I want to refer to the veterinary personnel. I was stopped when I wanted to deal with a certain aspect of the training of veterinarians and the Minister interjected to say that defence was the first priority. The position is that veterinary students apply and are accepted by Onderstepoort, but because they are balloted they have to do their military training first. I do not object to that, but it is a setback to those youths, because they might change their minds and go in for something else. Has the Minister made the necessary provision that those youths who have been balloted and have undergone military training for a year will be accepted again later, and get the same assistance? Secondly, will the Minister assure those youngsters that they will not be prejudiced in their seniority later? Those matters are important. Then I want to deal with the question of locating veterinary officers. Surely they should be located in the areas where there is the greatest density of stock population and where the greatest amount of research can be carried out, and where you have the greatest amount of diseases and plant poisons. It is extremely important that veterinary officers, instead of being located where they are, should be put where they can be of the greatest benefit to the country and do the greatest amount of research into the various diseases. There is a matter which falls under veterinary services which I want to deal with because it is causing many of us great anxiety. It is that under the new set-up, agriculture is being handed over to the new Bantustans. I want to ask the Minister how many veterinarians he has operating in the Transkei and how many of them have signified their desire to remain there under Bantu control? Are there any Bantu veterinary officers in the Transkei, or in the Republic, who might be employed in the Transkei to replace the Whites there? Many of us have had much experience of what happens under the dipping regulations. Dipping is essential to maintain healthy stock. Can the Minister tell me whether those officers have signified their willingness to stay there, and if they are not willing to stay there, will he exert any force upon them? And if they leave that part of the country, what control will be exercised? These are problems which will present themselves at no far distant date. There are the technicians and other officers required for soil conservation in the Transkei. To what extent will that be carried on by White officers? These are important factors which will present themselves to us in the near future, plus the one that if you do not exercise control as it should be exercised over the Transkei, the whole of the stock in the Republic, herds and flocks, will be seriously affected, notwithstanding the fact that he might maintain some control over their movement. When we had the greatest amount of control, East Coast fever still jumped 200 or 300 miles, and there is nothing to prevent that happening again in future under that type of control.

I want to raise another matter which I raised before. The Minister of Forestry has now indicated to us that he has cleared the whole of his forests of wattle growth. In his reply to me he actually referred to the wattle tree pest. He knows full well that his Department has complained about the fact that the Forestry Department were the producers of the seed which spread on to areas where we were trying to carry out soil conservation. There is such encroachment on those areas and in the river-beds that it is affecting the whole of the water supply in the lower regions. I want to ask the Minister, in view of what the Forestry Department has done, whether he will not give instructions now to see that the clearing is done within the riverbeds and within 50 yards of the streams themselves. [Time limit.]

I am rising, not to deny hon. members an opportunity to participate in the debate, but as not to allow too many matters to accumulate before I reply. I want to start where the debate started, with the hon. member for Gardens (Mr. Connan), and I should like to tell him that I appreciate it very much that he at the outset paid tribute to and expressed appreciation in respect of the officers of my Department, for their services. Of course he also mentioned certain problems, but one expects that of the Opposition. The matter the hon. member for Gardens and the hon. member for Albany mainly stressed was the staff position in the Department. The hon. member for Gardens also said, inter alia, that I had said that I wished we could double the staff. I think we shall have enough work to double our scientific staff and to keep them occupied full-time because of the many problems we have to cope with, not only those of which we are aware but also the new problems that are continually cropping up, and therefore, when I say I wish I could double our staff, hon. members must not infer from that that we are completely under-staffed. But that is the inference hon. members opposite draw, namely that we are so completely under-staffed that we cannot get additional new people and if perchance we do get new personnel, it is only enough to fill the vacancies that arise when others leave the service. But that is not so. Comparisons are made with the position when the United Party were in power, but I do not wish to go so far back. Four years ago there was a division and the Department of Agriculture was then split into two Departments. I assisted the Prime Minister with the division at the time. I thought it was a good thing, because if the necessary co-ordination between the two Departments of Agriculture is retained—for which he made provision, and which still exists to-day—it must have the effect of more systematically and successfully strengthening the scientific research services that are necessary for a happy agricultural community. Now I should like to mention some figures in respect of what happened in the Department of Agricultural Technical Services during the past three years.

In 1961-2 we began to budget for an increase in our establishment. That does not include scientists only, because every scientist and research worker in the service must be backed by auxiliary administrative personnel, for if the scientist or the research worker is not backed by administrative personnel, he cannot do his scientific work or research; he is then used for administrative work, and his services could be much better employed for the work for which he has been trained and for which we need his services so much. The increase in our establishment in 1961-2 was R350,000. When we budget for an increase in the establishment, the Public Service Commission, and not only the Public Service Commission, but the Treasury too, which has a big say and which has to approve the Estimates, will never permit it unless they are convinced that the staff can be obtained. There was a further increase in our establishment in the 1962-3 Estimates, namely an increase of R425,630, and in the present Estimates there is a further increase of R300,000. In other words, we have increased our establishment with so much staff and posts that it has amounted to an additional expenditure of no less than R 1,075,630, during this period of three years. Hon. members will now ask me what the result of that was. It has had this effect: In 1959 there were 1,438 professional posts in the Department of Agricultural Technical Services; of those 236 were vacant and 1,202 were filled. In 1962 the number of professional posts was increased from 1,438 to 1,651, and of these only 87 were vacant and 1,564 were filled. In other words, there was an increase of 213 posts, and an increase of 362 in posts that were filled. And then the hon. member for Albany dares to come along here and say nothing is happening and that there has been only retrogression. It seems to me he is comparing the Department with himself, because if there is a person who really is on the downgrade, to my sorrow and regret, then it is he, in more than one respect. I do not want the hon. member for Albany, who presents such a clear target if you wish to shoot at him, to make himself guilty of this kind of utterance.

While I am dealing with him, I want to come at once to the question of jointed cactus and prickly pear, and the allegation that we have failed to do anything to find other biological means of combating the existing pests and diseases, perhaps by getting insects from South America or elsewhere. The hon. member for Albany ought to know what the Department of Agricultural Technical Services did on his own farm before I became Minister, and I shall be glad if he will rise here and give an account of what he did to his farm after the Department cleaned his farm. The hon. member must please not tempt me to cause him to drop his head in shame. I have had much patience with the hon. member for Albany every year on account of the respect I had for him and because of his age, but when an old man becomes mischievous he has to be castigated sometimes just to remind him that he should preserve his dignity.

Why be so personal?

As I have referred to the staff I should also like to refer to the veterinary services, because the impression is being created that we have such a shortage of veterinary surgeons, that there are so many vacancies, that we cannot provide the services required of the Department. I repeat that is not so. I am not saying that the veterinarians are stationed sufficiently densely. To the hon. member for King William’s Town (Mr. Warren) I should also like to say that when we place our veterinarians, they are stationed where they are most needed, and where they accordingly can render the best service. However, during the past three years our veterinarians had to cope with a very very difficult task. I am not referring to our teaching staff at Onderstepoort and our research men; I am referring to our veterinarians in the field particularly. We had to cope with foot and mouth disease within the Republic of South Africa. That is a very difficult disease to combat. Immediately after that we had to deal with the greatest outbreak of it that has ever occurred in the history of South West Africa, and although we are not directly responsible for combating foot and mouth disease in that territory, it is in our interest as well as in the interest of South West Africa that we should combat the disease there and so prevent its spread to South Africa. Accordingly we have to withdraw many veterinarians as well as stock inspectors from the Republic and station them in South West Africa because the administration of South West Africa, which is responsible for their veterinary services, simply did not have sufficient personnel to cope with that country-wide outbreak. I am glad we could do it for them and I am still more pleased that we were able not only to confine the outbreaks of foot and mouth disease emanating from Bechuanaland in the Republic of South Africa to within the first 15 miles from the border, but also that we could render this assistance to South West Africa. As I have said, we confined the outbreak from the direction of Bechuanaland to within the first 15 miles from the border. That was the furthest it penetrated into our territory, and that was not the position in the Rhodesias for instance. They were not able to confine it to their borders in this manner. We were able to virtually restrict the foot and mouth disease here in the Republic, and I hope we have now completely brought it under control in South West Africa. In 1959 we had posts for 62 veterinarians. Of these eight were vacant and 54 filled. In 1962, only three years later, there were 80 posts; there were only two vacancies and 78 were filled. The position is that at the present time we do not have so many vacancies in spite of the fact that the number of posts has increased, and that is so notwithstanding the fact that these people are at liberty to resign from the service of the Department and to go into private practice. Our extension officers and our scientists are at liberty to offer their services to private enterprise. In this connection the fertilizer companies are particularly great sinners. They attract some of our best and most capable officers. They do not choose the young officers who have just graduated; they take these officers only when they have proved themselves in the Department. They then offer these officers high salaries and these people are at liberty to leave the Department. But in spite of this, the salaries and the conditions of services in the Department have been improved to such an extent, both in the case of agricultural scientists and in the case of veterinarians, that we were able not only to fill the positions that had become vacant, but to create more positions and also to fill those to the extent to which we have filled them.

What is the position as regards stock inspectors?

I shall come to that just now. The hon. member for Gardens (Mr. Connan) raised another point; he said we should make the best possible use of the services of these people; he did not say how we should do so. I just want to tell the hon. member that we have adopted the report of the Rautenbach Committee, which proposed methods of reorganization. We have not only adopted it and forgotten about it, but we have given practical effect to the recommendations of the committee as rapidly as possible. I make bold to say that there are very few precedents in any Government Department, where the recommendations of a commission or committee were implemented in practice as rapidly as was done in the case of this report of the Rautenbach Committee. For instance, to make our extension services more effective we are now engaged—we have already applied it to some extent—in splitting up the whole country which is divided into seven ecological regions, into much smaller sub-regions, and then appointing scientists in those sub-regions —perhaps a better qualified person than a mere extension officer. All our extension officers are graduates. In addition we are now giving them post-graduate courses. There are a number who have already passed this course. It is done in order better to qualify them in the methods of providing extension services, because in agricultural education you are concerned with adult education which is much more difficult than child education. We are already enjoying the fruits of that postgraduate training we are giving them. In other words, we are qualifying them better and now we want to utilize their services better. In those sub-regions we are now stationing a few extension officers under the supervision of a responsible and perhaps a more senior officer, in a smaller sub-region, and we are delegating powers to them so that they may take certain decisions in the performance of their task, which would otherwise have to be taken in the head office at Pretoria, and which necessarily involves waste of time and a waste of manpower also. As a result we are not only operating quicker, but we are already finding in the first stage of the application of this reorganization, that we are able to make better and more effective use of the services of our officers. We have already established five of these sub-regions in the Transvaal and the Transvaal Highveld region. We propose to establish six more there; in other words, to subdivide those regions into 11 or 12 subregions. We shall then do the same in the Cape, the Free State and Natal. We have done almost the same thing as regards the veterinary field services, by the establishment of our diagnostic centres, of which we have already established a few. These disease manifestations may be such that the veterinarians may be unable to diagnose them on the spot immediately, and so we now have diagnostic centres at various strategic points and places within a certain area—not necessarily a district, and we shall establish the requisite facilities there so that the clinical work and the examinations may be done there. Only the disease manifestations that cannot be diagnosed there, will then be sent to Onderstepoort in Pretoria for further inquiry and research. By so doing we are also, by means of this reorganization of our whole research and field services within the Department of Agricultural Technical Services, both as regards the veterinary aspects and the agricultural aspects, creating an opportunity for research within the areas concerned. In addition to that, we have two or three mobile research units which we are using for various purposes, when there is an emergency or when there is a particular problem where we feel research is necessary that could be better conducted on the spot. That mobile unit is well equipped with research workers. I take as an example tribulosis. The mobile unit then moves about in the parts where the disease occurs to see, when an animal is infected, whether it can be treated on the spot and what the symptoms are, etc.

The hon. member for Gardens has said that the only way in which one can enlighten farmers is through officials.

The best way.

He admits that we are using other methods. This is one of the best methods, but I still wish to differ from him. It is a good method of conveying information, but I do not think it is the only way. The hon. member perhaps also meant that it is the best way, but he said it was the only way. I think there are other good methods also, but those are methods in which it is expected of the farmer, the man who is practising the profession, to show the will and the desire to know more about his profession than he in fact knows, and that unfortunately is something that is largely lacking in many of our farmers. We have a mass of publications and it is disappointing to see how few farmers permanently subscribe to and read and study those publications. For instance, we have films that are placed at the disposal of our farmers, and there is other information at the disposal of our extension officers, but that information cannot be conveyed from farmer to farmer and from farm to farm. We have experimental farms and research stations and radio services. I personally think that the time set for the radio talk is wrong but the circumstances of the country and the way of life of our people differ so much from place to place that I am unable to suggest a time that will suit everybody or best suit everybody. I think there will always be a section of the public who will prefer this time that has been used for about two years already, that is 1.35 p.m., while others would like to have it at a different time. I do not think one should adhere to one time; if the radio talk has been broadcast for two or three years at a certain time, then I think the time should be changed to see whether it will be more fruitful. I should like to appeal to our farmers this afternoon to avail themselves of the facilities and of the opportunities that are created and offered to farmers to visit our experimental stations, our research stations and our experimental farms. I should like to appeal to farmers in their own interests to make greater use of those facilities.

As regards soil erosion, the hon. member for Gardens has, inter alia, quoted what Dr. Ross is supposed to have said, namely that so many millions of morgen of soil are being carried away to the sea. I do not know whether what I now wish to say is the hon. member’s own inference or whether Dr. Ross said it, and that is that the rate of soil destruction and soil erosion is increasing progressively. That is what the hon. member said, but I do not know whether Dr. Ross said it or whether it is an inference drawn by the hon. member himself. To that I wish to reply that this cannot possibly be so: I am the last man to endorse that, for if that is so, then all our soil erosion, and soil conservation works, which I regard as having been very successful through the years, have been absolutely futile and then we might as well discontinue that work. I therefore regard that statement as an exaggerated conclusion drawn by a member of the Opposition and which he now wants to couple to the name of an expert and an eminent person like Dr. Ross. Personally I do not believe Dr. Ross would have made himself guilty of such an exaggeration.

Various speakers asked what is being done about the caterpillar pest. I just want to say that we have been doing research in regard to the caterpillar pest for some years. We have two officials at Grootfontein who are doing full-time research in this regard. We know what methods we can use to combat caterpillars, but finding a remedy is not so important; the remedy ought to be such that it can be economically applied. We know how big and widespread our country is. Every remedy and insecticide we have at the present time to combat caterpillars, is so expensive that one cannot possibly apply it to thousands of morgen of land. Accordingly my reply to that question is that at the present time we do not have a practical, economical means of combating the pest which we could apply on a large, comprehensive scale over thousands of morgen.

Another matter raised here was the question of the locust pest and the manner of combating it. The hon. member for Gardens—because a plague has broken out in the northwest, which is really the place it could be expected to break out—said, inter alia, that he knows there are so few locust officials there that one locust official had 100,000 morgen of land under his control. I do not mind the hon. member for Gardens talking such nonsense when he addresses a political meeting in the Gardens or elsewhere, but when he comes to this House and makes himself guilty of such exaggerations, then I should like to say to him that it will cause people to have less respect for his contribution to the debate than they ought to have or than they might still have. The fact of the matter is that the locust outbreak we have now had is the first in the past eight years—the first of any considerable proportions—and in the Republic it extended over a total area of 120,000 morgen. Mr. Chairman, do you know from which district the plague came? It was in the Cape Midlands, Graaff-Reinet, Aberdeen, Willowmore, Beaufort West and then up to Hopetown and in the interior as far as Prieska and Marydale; those were the last districts where it was severe, except the outbreaks in South West Africa.

Did you say 120,000 morgen?

Yes, it is the total area in which the locust plague has assumed plague proportions. I do not think many of us know much about the life of a locust. It is a matter to which research workers throughout the world have devoted much attention and in connection with which much work has been done over many years. The question is what becomes of the locust once the plague is past; how does it come about that the locust appears again; of course it lays eggs in the ground at a certain stage, but how does it propagate its species and what becomes of it because only single ones are seen. The man who has done the greatest amount of work in this connection, and whose work has received most international recognition, is one of our own experts, Professor J. C. Faurie. He is 72 years old already. He has written a work known throughout the world as a result of his research into the solitary state that comes into the life of the locust. Now, the solitary state is that state where it changes its colour and its physical structure. Sometimes it seems to be much less active. From that solitary state it develops into a building-up stage. These outbreaks we had this year were mainly building-up outbreaks. A building-up outbreak again differs from the other form of outbreak. The history of the locust and its development from the solitary phase to the building-up stage must be known before effective control and measures of control can be applied. If the locust plague breaks out in the building-up stage, it is an outbreak such as we have had this year. In other words, small swarms appear at one place and other small swarms appear at other places. They eat and all of them do damage. That is why the farmers insisted so strongly that we should provide spraying material and locust spray pumps to the farmers so that each one could individually tackle these small swarms on his farm. Research and experience have taught us that if these building-up units are disturbed at too early a stage, the plague and its outbreak may possibly be prolonged for then the locusts disperse. Many will have been killed, but not all. The locust is disturbed and then it does not do what it would otherwise have done had it been left undisturbed, up to a point, namely to congregate in large numbers. That is the time when the locust can be combated and sprayed and destroyed most effectively.

As the hon. member has created the impression that we have done so little, I should like to furnish the following figures. Notwithstanding pressure from the farmers—we no longer had any of that type of spray pump to give individual farmers; we felt that we had much less control over the poison that would be used—we waited until it assumed this other form. When the campaign was at its height we sent in combat units comprising 105 lorry units and three aircraft. The rainy season intervened and unfortunately that somewhat hampered our aeroplane operations. Aircraft cannot be used effectively at night time; consequently we could use the aircraft only in the day and when it was not raining. As I have said, we had 105 lorry units with the aeroplanes, that is to say, a driver with a number of non-White staff members. The lorry units used about 1,200 tons of B.H.C. Powder. One ton of powder is sufficient on an average to treat 100 morgen. As we used 1,200 tons, it follows that we treated 120,000 morgen. Taking the average size of the hopper swarms and flyers per morgen, it is estimated that we destroyed 120,000 swarms. By aeroplane we sprayed 14,000 gallons of mixed B.H.C. fluid. We estimate that we destroyed at least 2,300 swarms of considerable size. We employed the services of three assistant senior officials, 15 district officials, 110 manager/ supervisors and about 500 non-Whites in addition in combating this locust plague and the estimated cost of the whole campaign was not less than R250,000 in the course of a few months. I am pleased to be able to announce that we consider that we have seen the end of it for the time being, and that within a week we shall have brought it completely under control.

May I say this in regard to jointed cactus. We are constantly engaged on a campaign against jointed cactus at Government expense. Apart from the fact that we provide the poison without charge, we have teams of workmen combating the thing. I wish to utter a warning about its danger. Last year I drew attention specially to the danger of the spread of jointed cactus. Hon. members must not think it is a plague that is confined to the Eastern Cape. You will be surprised to hear how far it has spread into the Republic of South Africa already. It may not occur so densely, but it is there. You find it in the Transvaal, in the Free State and in Natal even. In other words, there is not a single province that is not in danger of really becoming infested with this dangerous weed. The little joints break off; when they touch something they adhere to it. Subsequently they fall off again and they grow wherever they drop off. There is the danger of its spreading. We are very anxious to find biological means of combating it. In recent years we have already imported insects on two occasions which could possibly affect it in the same way as cochineal affects prickly pears, but unfortunately we have not been successful thus far. The methods of destruction are expensive, but it is expense we cannot shrink from.

I should like to thank the hon. member for Christiana (Mr. Wentzel). He has raised a number of matters I would otherwise have had to mention. The one point I should like to emphasize again in respect of research is this: It is not fair to say that in England or in Holland there is one research officer to so many head of cattle or one research officer to so many farmers, and here in South Africa we we have one research officer to so many farmers. It is wrong to put it that way. It must be remembered that although the percentage of farmers in those countries may be equal to the percentage in our country those countries, because of their bigger populations, have much greater reservoirs of manpower from which they can draw for their officials. That is why I say that proportionately we have made tremendous progress in the Republic when it is borne in mind that we have a White population of approximately 3,000,000 only from which we can draw. I think that proportionately we are far ahead in the extension services we are providing to our farmers, not even mentioning our research.

The hon. member for Albany (Mr. Bowker) referred to the fruit sucking moth. He then continued to say that people talk about many things but that we do not even take notice. Instead of making the statement he has made, I should like to say this: The sucking moth is about the only moth I know of for which the research officers of the Department of Technical Services have not found an effective remedy. We are doing research in that regard, but this moth is one of the kind that is a severe scourge one year, and then it disappears; but although it is not seen, it is still there. It is terribly difficult to find a solution for a problem the moment it appears. I have tried to think of a pest or plague in our country in respect of which the Department of Agricultural Technical Services has not done research successfully, or is not engaged on research. You know, Mr. Chairman, I could not think of a single one. I am not suggesting that our research services do not require overhauling. There are many directions in which we want to strengthen them but hon. members must remember that we do not have an inexhaustible source from which we can draw these people. Even at our universities, although they have the facilities there, we are finding that we simply cannot draw students to certain agricultural and scientific divisions. We cannot find students who are interested in it, apparently because they are not sufficiently encouraged at their homes or by the authorities. I wish to appeal to parents whose children reveal the aptitude, to use their influence with their children to qualify in the scientific spheres of agriculture also.

The hon. member for King William’s Town (Mr. Warren) referred to parasitical diseases in cattle, and asked that veterinarians should also be exempt from compulsory military service. I think we have antidotes for most of the parasitical diseases. Some of them are very effective and others may not be quite so effective, but research is continuing in that regard. Then he also asked, as he did earlier this year also, that I should endeavour to have veterinarians exempted from compulsory military service while they are studying. I told him at the time that this is really a matter for the Minister of Defence, and that he should discuss the matter with the Minister of Defence. Without derogating from the importance of the veterinarian, I should like to say that the day is past when we waged warfare with animals; we now wage war with human beings. If you wage war with human beings, it follows obviously that there is a greater need for the services of medical doctors than for the services of veterinarians. The fact that medical doctors can be used in time of war may be the reasons why the hon. the Minister of Defence decided to treat them as a special class that should be exempted from military service. That is the reply to the hon. member on that matter. He also asked me a question in regard to veterinary services in the Transkei. The hon. member is a friendly chap; many people think he is as green as he sometimes pretends to be, but I personally, with my experience, am not so sure that his reference to the problem of stock diseases, etc., in the Transkei is merely an agricultural matter, or whether it forms a part of his scare-mongering among the farmers, particularly the farmers near those borders. I think the latter is the truth. I do not think the hon. member can expect me to tell him out of hand how many veterinarians there are in the Transkei. I can ascertain how many there are, and then I can give him the information. The veterinarians in the Transkei to the best of my knowledge, have not yet indicated whether they will be prepared to remain in the Transkei if the Transkei attains the measure of independence it will have in terms of the legislation we have just passed. However, I may tell him that I am fully convinced that the veterinarians of the Transkei realize it is in the interests of the Whites as well as the Bantu that proper control should be exercised over veterinarians in that territory, and that they will show sufficient patriotism to make their services available there. I am convinced we shall get a sufficient number of veterinarians to render the necessary services in the Transkei. I should like to give the assurance, furthermore, that the Bantu authorities there realize they cannot take over the veterinary services there without the assistance of the White man in the Republic. We shall therefore see to it that they receive the requisite assistance in that respect, as in other respects; we shall provide them with the necessary extension services and guidance. If they ask for it, we shall not refuse it.

I beg your pardon, Sir: I nearly forgot about the hon. member for Cradock (Mr. G. F. H. Bekker); I cannot forget such a prominent link with the Eastern Province, can I? The hon. member has asked what we have accomplished in regard to the better breeding of sheep, particularly merino sheep, at Grootfontein. The Wool Board recently paid a visit to the various research centres and agricultural institutions of the Department, as they had had certain misgivings whether we were doing enough as regards the merino sheep in particular. They went to Elsenburg and to Grootfontein also. It is my information that those people were astonished at the work done by the Department, particularly as regards the improvement in the breeding of merino sheep. They were amazed at the quality of the merino sheep we have on our experimental farms. The majority of those sheep are the progeny of sheep we have bred ourselves on our experimental farms.

Then I should like to say something in regard to the auctions we conduct. I find that the sales at Elsenburg are advertised reasonably well because as far as I know there is not a person in the Western Cape who is not aware of those sales. However, I shall go into the matter and ascertain how the auctions are advertised. I shall try to ascertain whether they are adequately advertised so that the whole country knows when there is going to be a sale of good quality animals on our experimental farms. Another hon. member has asked how many stock inspectors and assistant stock inspectors we have. We have 250 stock inspectors and 700 assistant stock inspectors in our employ.

I am sure the A.I. Coops will be happy to receive the greater subsidy they are going to get. I think the time has arrived for the Minister to place the A.I. Co-ops on a sound footing and on a long term basis. These people are well past the experimental stage and they are now running their activities on business-like lines. It is very difficult for them to estimate how they should lay out their money to the best advantage in order to provide for bulls over a number of years. You get involved in large expenditure if you want to buy good bloodlines in the dairy world. If they want to take advantage of what is offering in the world to-day, it is essential that these Co-ops know what money is available, not only to buy a bull or two this year but also what replacements they can make within the next few years. It is no good buying one or two outstanding bulls and then to revert to a poorer type within a few years due to the lack of capital. I suggest the time has arrived for the Minister to formulate a long-term policy and tell the Co-ops that they would in future get a subsidy based on first inseminations, in other words first successful artificial inseminations. He will then be subsidizing those Co-ops that are running their businesses on sound business lines. That will make the Co-ops toe the line and run their businesses properly. There has been a tremendous improvement in the number of first inseminations over the last few years and I think most of these institutions have overcome their teething troubles. Now that they are getting on a sound footing I think it is time that the Minister took cognizance of this fact and treated them as permanent institutions which are doing a tremendous amount of good for the country and not only to the individual members of the Co-ops. Those Co-ops are available to the farming community as a whole. It is interesting to study the figures in respect of what has been done in the field of artificial insemination in Europe. I am not even talking about America because that is a rich country where they pay you not to plough your land. I wish I were a farmer in America and paid not to produce a crop. But in Great Britain where the economics of farming are very hard indeed and in smaller countries such as Denmark, Sweden, Western Germany, Holland, where farming is the backbone of some of those countries, you will be amazed to see how much depends on the agricultural economy and to what extent cattle and horses are treated with artificial insemination. A few years ago when I was in Denmark I was told that 80 per cent of their farm horses were inseminated artificially by the State for a nominal charge. It is amazing what the State is doing for the farmer in that regard in those countries.

I should like to ask the Minister what research is being done in relation to this subject as far as the State is concerned. Very little publicity is given to research which is done by his Department. He has outstanding officers. About four years ago we had a very serious problem in Natal affecting various milk-herds, especially Jersey herds where milk production is high. People were giving up A.I. for the very reason that they could not get their cows in calf on account of late ovulation which had not then been discovered to the extent it has to-day. De Van Rensburg came down. I put my pedigree herd of Jerseys at the disposal of the Co-op as a test herd and he said immediately that he thought the trouble was late ovulation, and he was right. By delaying A.I. and doing it two days running instead of doing it the first day the cow “comes on heat” you overcome late ovulation. We got over that trouble the following year; every cow was in calf mostly after the first insemination. We solved that problem which was actually making a large number of people give up artificial insemination. You can see how important this is, Mr. Chairman, in the case of those people who only have a 3⅟-gallon cow. That farmer cannot afford the sire which he can get from artificial insemination. We were improving their herds considerably but because of this factor of late ovulation which suddenly hit this country we found that we were not getting cows in calf. But an outstanding man from the Department came down and he put us right. The herd of a professor at one of the universities in the Transvaal was affected and he did not know what the trouble was until Dr. Van Rensburg went there. I think greater publicity should be given to what is done in the line of research. We have an excellent artificial insemination magazine—we all subscribe to it— but we get nothing in it of what the Department is doing.

A couple of years ago some fertilized ovum from pedigreed sheep were introduced in this country in the tract of a female rabbit. Look at the saving on transport. Those rabbits were flown out, the ovum were taken from the rabbits in this country and introduced into sheep. Pedigreed sheep were born and the foster mothers raised first-class sheep. If that is carried on I do not see why we cannot one day do that in the case of cattle; we may even be able to do it in the case of draught horses, It is not beyond the wit of man to do it in cattle if you can do it in sheep and why cannot you go on and do it in the case of other animals. It may be a very good excuse to the punter on the racecourse who, when his horse comes in last to say: “Well I did not know that that horse was brought into this country in a rabbit.” Seriously, it opens up a wide field of what can be done. I do feel that there is a tremendous amount on the technical side of research that the State should be doing in this country to help the artificial insemination Co-ops. I think in the first instance, at this stage the hon. Minister should go in for a long-term policy and subsidize the co-ops, and a fair way of subsidization would be to base it on the number of first inseminations that each co-op has, and that they should be paid according to what service they are giving to farmers and also on a basis of efficiency. It would make those inefficient co-ops, who are not doing a good job, toe the line and put their own house in order. So I think the very least the Minister could do would be to tell those co-ops that these subsidies are going to continue for a number of years so that they can put a long-term policy into being in relation to the purchase of bulls and their full future development. There is another matter I want to raise and that is the question of maize-meal. [Time limit.]

I want in the first place to refer to the action of the hon. member for Gardens (Mr. Connan) here this afternoon when he quoted from the Report of the Secretary for Agricultural Technical Services. The impression that he wanted to create by quoting specific portions of the Report was that the Secretary for Agricultural Technical Services was also of the opinion that things were not going too well with agriculture. I want to tell the hon. member that if he wants to interpret the report in this way he can use it for that purpose but if he reads the Report properly he will find that there is scarcely any matter in connection with which progress is not mentioned in the Report. The hon. member quoted from page 2. I want to refer him now to page 68 in regard to one of the matters that he raised here. This deals with Field Services and the application of soil conservation practices. This paragraph reads—

And this is not the only paragraph of this nature to be found in the Report of the Secretary for Agricultural Technical Services. One finds these remarks in connection with virtually every subject, research, stock diseases and research in connection with improved production methods. There is hardly one subject in connection with which the Secretary reports that no progress has been made in all regions. So much for the information of the hon. member for Gardens. I want to say to him that he often makes me ashamed of being a farmer when I have to listen to him speaking in this House because he creates the impression that the farmers expect everything to be given to them on a platter. He also creates the impression that they do not absorb the results of research and all the information that is available to them; that they do not read the various agricultural periodicals; that they do not even take the trouble to turn on the radio and listen to it. He sought to create the impression this afternoon that there was only one way of conveying that information to the farmers and that is for the hon. the Minister to appoint technical officials to convey that information to the farmers personally. I wonder whether the hon. member realizes that he is doing the farmers a disservice. The hon. member is doing the farmers a disservice by depicting them in this light.

You are a “boerehater” (farmers’ enemy) now.

No, I am not a “boerehater” but I hate and despise the fact that the farmers are belittled in a way that they do not deserve. I want to ask the hon. member for Gardens to stop this sort of thing, to stop suggesting that the farmers take so little interest in these matters. He must realize that the farmers are anxious to obtain the information which is available to them, whether in connection with research or extension services. Progress can really be reported. But I want to draw the attention of the hon. the Minister to another matter. In connection with soil conservation I want to point out the action that is taken in regard to farm planning. We are aware of the fact that if a farm is planned, it is necessary to complete the planning first before one can obtain the maximum benefit from the planning. The position, however, is that there are cases where the farmer does not have sufficient capital to proceed immediately with all the works according to the planning and to complete them entirely. There are also cases where the farmer is not able, either because of legacies or because of other claims which there may be against the farm concerned, to obtain a loan, in which case he is compelled to complete the planning on his own. But subsidies are not paid on any of these works until the entire planning has been finalized. It does happen that where quite a number of works have to be done it may take from five to six years before that planning has been completed in all its ramifications, or before all the work that has been planned has been completed, with the result that the farmer can only obtain the subsidy that is due to him after some years. I want to say immediately that I am not in favour of the farmer receiving his subsidy immediately each work has been completed but I do want to ask whether some method cannot be found by means of which, after the completion of a few of the works included in the planning, a portion of the subsidy may perhaps be paid to the farmer so that he can use that money to complete the planning. I am sure that some means can be found to pay out a portion of the subsidy for the work that has been completed so that the farmer can make more rapid progress with the remaining works.

The hon. the Minister correctly stated that he had already asked himself what disease or plague existed in South Africa for which his Department had not yet discovered a remedy or which they were not at present investigating. But one of the sheep diseases for which his Departments has not yet found an effectively remedy is blindness in sheep. Up to the present we have not had an effective remedy nor have we been able to find an immunizing vaccine. The farmers know that once blindness breaks out amongst sheep, it is impossible to treat the sheep properly. Our experience has been that once blindness breaks out amongst a herd of sheep, practically the entire herd goes blind before the disease stops spreading.

As far as the combating of jointed cactus is concerned, I want to say that the means placed at our disposal are very effective. My experience is different to that of the hon. member for Albany (Mr. Bowker). It is true of course that if one wants to combat jointed cactus with 245T, the hormone killer, which is also spread mechanically, it is no easy method. This is not the same as combating the cactus biologically, in which case one has nothing to do. [Time limit.]

I should like to address the House on the question of research and the production of fibres. Earlier in the Session I had the opportunity to raise this matter with the Minister, and both in reply to questions that I put to him and in subsequent conversations, he was able to give us some answers, and I think he helped me to get a slightly better understanding of the position. The position as I see it at this stage, certainly cannot rest there, and I am sure the hon. Minister would not be happy if it were to rest there. What we have found as a result of inquiries is that up to now on this research some R85,000 has been expended during the last few years, and up to this stage we have only been able to produce some 4 per cent of our requirements for the manufacture of jute goods. I think we can accept it that that is the position at this stage.

Those of us who know about sanctions imposed upon us some 13 or 14 years ago by India, realize that at that stage we were placed in a very precarious position. We had to turn to all ways of manufacturing in an endeavour to clothe our products—we used cotton, we used paper, we used everything, but ultimately our difficulties were really overcome when we got to the stage of importing secondhand wool packs and secondhand grain bags. But this is not really helping us now, because the policy that is apparent now is that the Government is permitting the continuance of the manufacture of wool packs and grain bags by mills in this country, whilst at the same time a certain amount of importation of grain bags and wool packs from Pakistani is allowed. After sanctions were imposed upon us by India, Pakistani undertook to manufacture wool packs and grain bags and export them to us and therefore we could import our requirements from that country. But I come back again to the position that we here chose, and are continuing to allow the manufacture of nearly 50 per cent of our grain bags and a similar percentage of our wool packs in this country by local mills at a very substantial cost when compared with the imported article. I do not intend to go into details, but I think roughly I can say that during the last three years from 1959 to 1962, it has cost the wool-farmer alone the sum of R971,200 to meet the extra cost due to us carrying on the manufacture in this country. No policy has been stated by the Government on this issue as to why they continue with this method and why they do not lift the restrictions and allow us to import and save our farmers this extra money that he is paying now. As a matter of fact I have never in all discussions found that hon. members opposite have given definite views on this aspect, although they are all very closely associated with agriculture and some of them at any rate know exactly what is going on. But we have reached a stage now where I think we have got to examine the position and the hon. Minister should give us a very clear picture of the Government’s policy for the future. We know that it is a difficult position. We know of all the experiments, but we do not know where these experiments and where the research is leading us to. At this stage I understand that some 2,500 tons of phormium tenax is being produced, whereas the country’s requirements, if this fibre is good enough to make our jute bags, would be some 50,000 tons. Sir, I have also learned from the official side that they cannot make a bag of this tenax alone, and that they have constantly to import jute so as to mix it, and only on the basis of a 50/50 mixture can you make a grain bag—I do not think you can make a wool pack. The other aspect of the position is that we hear of these developments and I would like to ask the hon. Minister to give us a full statement of what he anticipates will take place during the next few years to meet this position and enable us to eliminate this very heavy cost the producers are bearing to-day. And when I say that they are bearing these costs, I do not think they know about it. It has never been stated anywhere, one never reads about it. They are just merrily going on under the impression that everything in the garden is beautiful, and the farmers do not realize that they are carrying this extra burden, whilst grain bags manufactured in this country are costing practically double the price at which they can be imported. We know that is the position. There is no gainsaying it. I would also like the Minister to tell us whether he has any knowledge of any experiment of growing of jute on the northern borders of the Republic, and if he knows of it, would he be good enough to tell us what is taking place in regard to this experiment. I happen to know, but I do not know whether this has to be kept confidential. It seems to me that it is a development that might lead to something. But at this stage we are really in the position where I see little hope. For 14 years we have known that this has been the position, and for 14 years we have been at the mercy of Pakistani which country could impose sanctions at any time, and therefore we have been nervous, and now we are allowing this state of affairs to continue where the farmers are being called upon to make a very substantial contribution to the running of two factories. I am not against these industries being there, but I am certainly opposed to any industry which is carried by the farmers, when such factories are not in a position to produce efficiently and able to face overseas competition Having touched on that briefly, I would ask the hon. Minister to give us an opportunity to see exactly what his programme is with regard to being able to produce sufficient fibre to meet the needs of our country in the near future.

I want to come back to the hon. member for Albany (Mr. Bowker) who issues a warning every year about jointed cactus. I think that this House and the country should really take note of what he has to say. He has also said on occasions that housewives are also responsible for the spread of jointed cactus, not only in its natural home where it has always been found the Eastern Cape, but also in the Free State and the Transvaal. After the hon. member had issued a warning in this regard one year, I returned home and there I found no fewer than five luxuriant jointed cacti in my wife’s rockery and I can give the House the assurance that I went to look at various rockeries after that and I found these jointed cacti growing profusely there. I really think that the country should take note of what that wise old gentleman, the hon. member for Albany, has to say here. It is good advice.

I want to tell the hon. the Minister that I differ slightly from him in the statement that he made to the effect that the fruit sucking moth was a “boytjie” which only came out at night. I think that there are “girlies” amongst them as well and I hope that the Department will not believe what he said because then they may possibly think that the moth will die out!

I agree with the hon. the Minister that his Department is really doing wonderful work in practically every sphere. As the hon. the Minister said, there is hardly any matter in connection with which they are not doing research. I think that the time has come for our farmers to make more use of the knowledge which is placed at their disposal by the Department of Agricultural Technical Services. We will eliminate many of our failures if we make use of the research that they have done and what they have proved to us by way of experiment. I planted beans one year, speckled sugar beans, and rust attacked the beans. I then telephoned the research station to ask whether there was not some type of bean that was immune to rust. The official told me that if I planted haricot beans I would be successful. I planted that type of bean and notwithstanding the fact that hail destroyed the plants, the haricots sprouted again and I was able to reap a crop. That is why I agree with the hon. the Minister that our farmers must go more out of their way to make themselves more au fait with the way in which we can solve our agricultural problems. The knowledge is there; we only have to ask: we only have to read “Farming in South Africa” regularly; we must read our Bible every day but we must also read this publication. If we listen to the radio talks as well then I am sure that most of our problems will be solved.

A fact that disturbs one when one considers that we have about 110,000 farmers to-day and that between 2,500 and 3,000 young men enter the farming profession annually, men who have chosen the difficult calling of a farmer, is that there are so few of them who have taken courses in agriculture. The hon the Minister and his Department must give the farmers information and guidance to enable them to make a success of their farming operations, but agriculture has become so involved and so scientific that if a man does not know his work, he is going to have to apply for assistance as surely as night follows day. That is why I feel that we must not rest, and the hon. the Minister must not rest, until we have reached the stage where every young man entering the farming profession is equipped with the knowledge that is required to make a success of farming. He must have received agricultural training. But what is the position? The position is that in our agricultural colleges at the moment we are training about 280 boys who are taking a diploma course. But if we analyse the whole position we find that of our new young farmers, only 15 per cent or 16 per cent of them have any training in agriculture or any agricultural knowledge. We can ask ourselves what the result of this will be. If I have to start a new profession of which I have no knowledge, how on earth can I be expected to make a success of that involved profession? I asked recently for an agricultural college at the research station at Bethlehem. I have now learnt from a reliable source that the policy in connection with agricultural training is going to be completely changed and that the Department is going to abolish the diploma course at the agricultural colleges. The reason that I was given for this was that an insufficient number of men were available to continue the two-year diploma course at the colleges. It was felt that these men could be better utilized and I want to agree with the person who gave me this information. What good does it do to send a boy to an agricultural college for two years where he has to learn to make cheese and butter, but when he goes farming he never makes cheese because the cheese factory makes the cheese and the butter factory makes the butter. I was told that the idea was that those colleges should be used to provide short courses for young farmers after they had been farming for two or three years and had then discovered what their actual problems were, but last night under the Vote of the Minister of Education, I asked that this whole question of the agricultural training of our young men should be referred to the National Advisory Education Council. The Chairman then called me to order but I would like to draw your attention, Mr. Chairman to Section 7 of the National Advisory Education Council Act. That section states emphatically that any Minister can delegate any matter in connection with education to the Minister of Education for submission to the National Advisory Education Council. I want to ask the hon. the Minister of Agricultural Technical Services, who is a responsible person as I know, to give attention to this matter. What is going to be done to train our young aspirant farmers so that before they go farming they will at least have a basic knowledge of agriculture? If you will permit me to say so, I want to say that our agricultural high schools are the places where these young aspirant farmers can pass their agricultural matriculation examination. They will then at least be equipped with a basic knowledge of agriculture. [Time limit.]

For the last ten years, at the risk of boring the House I have raised the question of research being done into the propagation of the finest grass we have in the whole South-Western district, that is “rooi platgras”. It is indigenous, a perennial, it stands up against drought, and it is the most palatable grass, so palatable that it is being practically tramped out by over-stocking. It is the grass, Sir, that really gave the name of “grasveld” to our South-Western districts. No means could however, be found to propagate it. I have raised this year after year. Stellenbosch found that if the ground was disturbed in any way, the grass died out. So much so that on land which had not been reploughed for 100 years, and had been lying fallow for a century, although the grass grew round it and the seed fell on that land, it would not grow. Stellenbosch told us that the mere putting of fertilizer on the soil destroyed the grass. For years and years I have now tried to propagate it, because I have been trying to grow grass for something like 40 years, and I have tried all these exotic grasses recommended by the experts, such as summer-rainfall grasses, and others they have given to us, but none of them are as good as this particular grass. I have tried to propagate it by collecting the seeds and sowing it, but it was useless. I tried to grow it by actually planting the roots, and that did not help. I cut little sheaves and dropped them on the bare veld, but even then it would not germinate. For the first time since I raised the subject, Elsenburg, led by Professor Sim, his research workers and assistants, have been studying the subject and working at it, and they have been most sympathetic to me. They have been down to my farm several times and they have advised me, but up to a short while ago they have had disappointing results. They found that the mere handling of this grass causes the awn which grows out of the seed to break off and then the grass will not germinate. This grass has almost completely disappeared, with the result that renosterbos and a harsh grass called bokbaard increased; and where renosterbos grows, due to the shadow it casts, nothing else can grow under it and it has become an absolute curse. The difficulty has been to try to eliminate that weed, which in no way improves the soil but impoverishes it. The veld became absolutely useless as pasture. That is why at great cost many of us put down permanent pastures. I for one have put down thousands of morgen of permanent pastures, and I feared that this indigenous grass had disappeared entirely. But a short while ago Professor Sim and his assistants have made a break-through, and I want to congratulate them and the Department on the wonderful work they have done. I should like to place on record my gratitude for the work done by Professor Sim and his assistants, like Mr. Pienaar, who spent days on my farm. We were advised to rest the ground entirely—and I mean entirely—for at least from July to December. Not an animal must go into it. If a flock of sheep is allowed to graze even for a few hours when it is coming into seed, it is so palatable that they eat off the seed heads and no seed will come into ear that year. Stellenbosch asked me to rest a large area as an experiment, and I closed in about 300 morgen. They said that I would find that although it seems as if the grass has disappeared, the little stools are still there, and to my amazement I found that they were correct. These stools grow large amounts of seed, and in a short while the grass propagated itself. This awn which grows out of the seed twists itself into a little tight spiral and it works its way into any little crevice in the soil, particularly on bare patches where the sun has cracked the soil. The seed falls in there and starts to grow, and once it is growing it casts a shadow on that bare patch and then the renosterbos disappears. So not only have the Stellenbosch research workers made a break-through in propagating this rooi platgras, but they have found the answer to destroying renosterbos, because the renosterbos seed is a hard-shell seed and unless it is baked in the sun on almost bare ground for several months the seed will not germinate. But where this grass grows it casts a shadow and the renosterbos seeds cannot germinate. The result is that within a year I have seen a great improvement on land which I thought was useless for grazing. Its value has come back, and it is entirely due to the work done by the Department over a period of almost 12 years. Therefore I would like to put on record my appreciation for what they have done. Incidentally, what is interesting is that the rooi platgras started to come back and then another grass which we thought had disappeared, called veldgras, started to grow again. What is interesting is that the Australians came out here and took some of the seed and propagated it, because it is not as difficult to propagate as rooi platgras, and they are now selling it back to us at R2.50 per lb. That is the position and I think that if only the farmers now could be advised to rest the land completely for four or five months, the rooi platgras will grow and the renosterbos will be eradicated.

I want to take the plunge and make a request of the hon. the Minister. My request is to institute a diploma course in wool at the Oakdale Agricultural School in the South-Western districts at which there are about 200 students. The farmers from Mossel Bay down to Sir Lowry’s Pass are mainly wool and wheat farmers. I want to ask the hon. the Minister to institue a diploma course in wool at Oakdale. The hon. the Minister will say that we have an agricultural school at Glen and Grootfontein but these places are far from the South-Western districts and the climate there is different; the grazing there is different and it will mean a very great deal to the wool farmers if we can have a diploma course of this nature. I want to congratulate the young farmers of the Western Cape on the guidance that they are receiving as a result of research. Fifty-one years ago I had the opportunity of studying at Elsenburg for two years. I learnt a great deal there but in those days we did not have the information and the research that we have to-day. At that time our professor was Professor Jan Neethling, who is still living at Stellenbosch. He did research into wheat that was immune to rust. This was of very great importance particularly to the farmers in the Swartland and many of those kinds of wheat are still being sown to-day. Younger men came after him and they continued to do research into wheat that was immune to rust. We thank the hon. the Minister for those services.

There is also the question of crop rotation. In the South-Western districts and even in the Swartland we find a far higher yield per morgen to-day as a result of crop rotation. Years ago we did not know what crop rotation meant. We now see lucerne growing on the dry hillsides. After three years it is ploughed under and the soil regains practically all its strength, and the same thing holds good with lupins.

We also want to thank the Department for the guidance that we are receiving in connection with soil erosion. Before we had our contour walls, our lands were washed away but that has now been put a stop to except in exceptional cases. I also want to thank the Department for the research that is being done at Bien Donne in connection with fruit. The fruit that we grow improves annually. Take the Kakamas peach which is canned and for which there is a great demand overseas. Three or four types of cling peaches have now been introduced through research at Bien Donne, peaches that are equal to Kakamas peaches, peaches that can be canned and that can be used for local and foreign consumption. I want to thank the Government heartily for the amount of money that was voted a few years ago for an experimental farm for the wine farmers in the Robertson district. I am pleased that this has been done. The wine farmers are one of the branches of agriculture that has never sat on the Government’s doorstep. This experimental farm has been a source of great consolation to me because I represent the second-largest wine producing constituency in the Cape. The farmers are very pleased in this regard and are very grateful to the Government.

The hon. the Minister mentioned the fruit-sucking moth and I want to say a few words about it. In my constituency behind the Langeberge there are large-scale Kakamas peach farmers and the damage that the fruit-sucking moth does there amounts to thousands of pounds. I will appreciate it if the hon. the Minister will have this question of the fruit-sucking moth investigated.

I want to say a few words in the interests of the tobacco farmers. I want in the first instance to refer to the tobacco research account that was instituted in 1960 when an amount of R500,000 was voted for tobacco research by this House. Three years have now gone by and in the latest Report by the Department there is no indication that this money has been spent for the purpose for which it was voted by this House. I think that it is necessary therefore, to make my point, to draw the attention of the hon. the Minister to the provision in the Act regarding the use of this fund. It is as follows—

I think it can be said that as far as the research station is concerned we have one of the best research stations in the world for dealing with the production of tobacco but research is needed in regard to the marketing of tobacco and the necessary publicity for tobacco products. As far as I have been able to ascertain, over the past three years not more than R50,000 has been spent and the interest earned by the fund has exceeded R 100,000. In other words, it can be said that no money has been used from that fund to promote the further marketing of tobacco. The money in the fund—I want to draw the attention of the hon. the Minister to this fact— is to be used to promote the export of tobacco. I think it is necessary at this stage to give figures of the surplus production of tobacco and I refer here to the latest circular of the M.T.G.A., the largest tobacco co-operative in the country, in which they draw the attention of their members to the present position—

Then they give the figures for the various types of tobacco and they point out that the surplus is about 20,000,000 lbs. It is clear therefore that the overseas’ marketing of our tobacco is a question of the most vital importance to the country and to the economic future of the tobacco farmer.

What is the tobacco farmer being asked to do to-day? He is being asked to peg his production. He must not produce more than can be used. I want to refer once again to the report of the co-operative—

Order! The hon. member is now dealing with marketing.

With respect, the administration of the fund falls under the Vote of this hon. Minister and not under the Vote of the hon. the Minister of Agricultural Economics and Marketing.

The hon. member may proceed.

The value of the tobacco crop produced by the farmers is about R 30,000,000 but the Government receives a far larger return from that crop. The Government has an income of more than R60,000,000 per annum from the production of the tobacco farmer. I think that it can rightly be said that there are no other farmers who provide more revenue to the State than the tobacco farmers, but the fact remains that the tobacco farmer receives less assistance from the Government to improve his crop than any other branch of farming in this country. The average price for South African tobacco, and the quality of it, is considerably lower than the average world price and quality. It is quite far down. It is far below the quality of Rhodesian tobacco and there is no tobacco farmer in South Africa who receives the price for his tobacco that the farmer in Rhodesia receives.

I want to refer to another remark in the latest report of the co-operative where they point out the difficulties that are experienced in selling the surplus production of our South African tobacco abroad. This is what they say—

It is clear therefore that if we want to compete on the world market it is absolutely necessary for us to produce tobacco of a far higher quality and many tobacco farmers are now starting to feel that the Government should take action, as is the case in Rhodesia, to apply strong measures in regard to the cultivation of tobacco plants. Research over a period of years, on which thousands of rand have been spent, has proved that in order to have a successful tobacco crop it is absolutely necessary for the plant to be cultivated properly. In other words, it depends upon the treatment of the tobacco seed beds. The request that I want to make of the hon. the Minister is this. Farmers in general feel that steps must be taken to ensure that the plants are cultivated by the farmers in the correct way. I want to refer to a circular which was sent by the hon. the Minister’s Department to 4,000 members of the tobacco co-operatives in the Transvaal, and to what they recommend in connection with the treatment of tobacco seed beds. They say—

In other words, they do not recommend plastic material for covering tobacco seed beds, but if one looks at the Report of the Department one finds a completely different story. If the hon. the Minister will look at page 40 he will see that the Department recommends that the farmers should use plastic material to cover the beds. Here we have one recommendation from the research station and just the opposite recommendation from the Department. [Time limit.]

Before I reply to the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg (District), I should like to remove a possible misunderstanding. It has been brought to my attention that the hon. member for Gardens (Mr. Connan) in his speech referred to 100,000 morgen, while I should have referred to an area of 120,000 square miles infested with locusts. If I have thereby done the hon. member for Gardens an injustice, by saying that he referred to the same thing I did, I apologize.

The hon. member for Pietermaritzburg (District) (Capt. Henwood) referred to the artificial insemination co-operatives, as he knows, the subsidy, that is to say the support by the State for artificial insemination co-operatives, was increased considerably last year. In the case of the Natal co-operative, where we gave them R4,000 in the past, we are granting them R7,600 this year. The Cabinet has agreed to increase those subsidies. They receive payment according to the number of doses of semen they sell. The object of the subsidy is to enable the co-operatives to organize their affairs in such a way that they will eventually become self-sufficient. He foresees, as I do too, that some years will elapse before the cooperatives will be self-sufficient, and he wants me to make a promise or give a guarantee to the co-operatives that this subsidy or a bigger one will extend over a period of many years. But I cannot do that. Estimates for the subsidy have to be submitted every year. However, I shall give him an assurance that as long as the need exists not only to keep these co-operatives going, but also to develop them through subsidies, the State will make the necessary funds available. But I cannot commit myself to a fixed amount. I do not think there are precedents, except under exceptional circumstances for the withdrawal of a subsidy by the State, and I do not believe it will happen in this case. He asks what research we are conducting. There are two teams conducting research, at Onderstepoort and at Irene, in connection with artificial insemination. One of the important things is the temperature and the freezing methods to which the semen must be subjected when being conveyed, so that it does not lose its fertility. Then heredity tests are conducted, as well as prevention of disease and research into venereal diseases. We shall continue our research in this respect, and I hope with great success.

The hon. member for Somerset East (Mr. Vosloo) has pointed out that under our soil conservation policy, a farmer cannot obtain a subsidy from the State for soil conservation before his farm has been planned, and then he has to carry out all the planning before he can obtain the subsidy. The hon. member is wrong there. It is true that a farmer cannot obtain a subsidy until he has planned his farm. That is one of the methods we are using to compel people to plan their farms completely, because we expect them not to be after the subsidy only, but that they should really aim at having properly planned farms to conduct the practice of farming in a way that will be more remunerative for the future, and to promote soil fertility. But once a farm has been planned, and a certain work is surveyed which has been incorporated into that planning, such as the building of a dam or erection of fences, he may carry out that one task after it has been properly planned by the Department. Once such a project has been approved, he may proceed to build it and he can have his subsidy on it, and then he may proceed to the next item. He receives his subsidy for every piece of work falling within the plan that is carried out separately. So he need not complete the whole planned scheme for the whole farm before he receives the money, but we cannot give him the money for that planning or for that piece of work in advance for then we do not know whether the work will ever be done. A number of administrative problems are involved. That is why we say: “No, first do the work, and once you have done the work according to the specifications, we pay you your full subsidy for that particular piece of work, and then you may carry on with the next piece of work. You can also have a Government loan.” I should like to take this opportunity to say that we have introduced a change of policy in that respect also. When a work is big enough to be built by means of a Government loan, we have said: “Look, we are giving you the full amount, and that project must be completed within the first three years.” But now we have found that there are people who have been receiving that loan for three years, and apparently used it for other purposes, and never started on the work. We have now decided to say to the farmer: “If we approve a work, and you do not possess the capital to carry on with it, and you have to take a loan from the State, we shall give you only one-third or less of that loan. Once you prove to us that you are able to complete one-third in one year, we shall advance you one-third of the amount, but then that work must first have been completed before you apply for the next instalment; we would rather give you the loan in three instalments instead of in one amount in advance, subject to the condition that you must within a limited time use each one of those instalments and complete the work.”

Then the hon. member asked a question about infectious blindness in sheep. There are two kinds of blindness; the one is just a temporary blindness that occurs, and that apparently is attributable more to a deficiency in the grazing, etc. I take it that the blindness he has referred to is infectious blindness in sheep. Apparently that blindness is caused by a virus, and that virus can be carried around by flies or insects that settle in the eyes of the sheep. The problem is how to keep away those flies and insects. There are disinfectants that can be used to ward off the flies, but there are practical problems. Unless such a sheep can be isolated and its eyes bandaged thereby keeping away the flies and insects, the spread of the disease can hardly be combated. It is not a thing of which the Department is unaware or in regard to which no research has been done by it. The Department knows it is a virus that causes this blindness, but it is also an infectious virus that is spread in this manner, and I am afraid that it is one of the kinds of problems for which there is no ready solution.

The hon. member for Port Elizabeth (Central) (Mr. Dodds) has referred to fibre cultivation. I should like to tell the hon. member that we are continuing research in regard to fibre production in the country. We have made such progress that I am convinced that as regards the production potential of the various kinds of fibres, such as hollyhock and phormium tenax and sisal and even pineapple fibre, there are virtually unlimited possibilities for the cultivation of fibres if this one single difficulty can be overcome, namely the harvesting process that must be mechanized to make it an economic proposition. Included in this is the decordization and retting of it. We do not have the manpower everywhere to do it in the way it is done in other countries where labour is very cheap—much cheaper even than it is here. We cannot do it in the expensive way by using manual labour. In the reserves, for instance, where I think plenty of labour will be available, there will surely be considerable scope for the integration into agriculture of fibre cultivation by the Bantu themselves, but in our White areas, where we pay high wages and where labour is not always plentiful, we feel we shall have to mechanize. We have imported some of the best machinery that is used, as far as we know, in other parts of the world and tested it here, but that machinery is not very effective. It has been poorly constructed. Various machines are required for the various processes and the price of it is too high. My Department, in conjunction with the C.S.I.R. is still conducting research constantly in regard to the simplification and perfection of that machinery, and I am hoping that before long our research will meet with so much success in the mechanical field that we shall devise something that will meet our requirements, and which will make it possible to perform effectively those processes of defibring within the resources of the farmers themselves. However, I believe that even if our importation of bags were to be cut off completely to-day, with the knowledge we have already acquired, we shall be able to supply our own fibre for the manufacture of bags within a limited time.

The hon. member for Bethlehem (Mr. Knobel) has pleaded for the training of young farmers. It is true that in recent years cosiderable extensions have been made at agricultural colleges for the training of young farmers where they can take the diploma course.

May I ask a question? Did the hon. the Minister say that with the knowledge we have now acquired in connection with the decortization of plants, and the manufacture of bags, we shall be able to provide the needs of the farmers in case our imports are cut off?

Yes, I have said that with the knowledge we have, because if we are driven to tackle something of this nature, we will tackle it even if it is a little more expensive and even if we will not be doing it in the most economical manner. We have certain machines that can do that work, but they are not economical enough to our liking. We cannot do it at competitive world prices, but when there is a boycott and imports are cut off completely, then the question is not whether it can be done at world prices, but whether it can be done at all, whatever the cost. I contend that if our imports of bags were to be cut off to-day, we have adequate possibilities of production and also the skill and the knowledge of mechanical harvesting and retting, to enable us to supply our own bag requirements within a very short time.

May I ask a question? Dealing with this particular aspect of the fibre that we are producing now, your own officials have indicated that you cannot use phormium tenax on its own; that it is not suitable for making a bag. Would you please clear up that aspect?

I have been informed by my Department that in New Zealand they are already using this fibre for wool bags. It is not absolutely unsuitable for it, but wool buyers prefer the mixture to which we are accustomed, of which our wool bags are being manufactured to-day. But phormium tenax is not the only fibre we have. We have a fibre which I think is of better quality. Nobody can give me the assurance that that is so, but I think the highest quality fibre that we have is the pineapple fibre, and by mixing the fibres that we have available we may have enough fibres of different qualities that we can use in time of need to manufacture perhaps even better bags than we are using to-day.

*The hon. member for Bethlehem (Mr. Knobel) has pleaded for the training of our young farmers. Personally I agree with him that the time has long since passed that farmers could farm without a little agricultural and scientific background, but I should like to add to that farming is of such a nature that even if a person holds a master’s degree in agriculture attained at a university, or even if a person has passed a diploma course and has been the head student who obtained the most marks, that would be no proof that that person will be a successful farmer. I know of people whose sons have only passed matric, and who spent one year at an agricultural college, and I know of others who had no agricultural training at all, but who had so much common sense and mental grounding that they concentrated on acquiring the available information, with the result that they are some of our very best farmers to-day. They went out of their way to qualify themselves better by acquiring the requisite knowledge that they did not have before. I want to say only this in respect of the training of our farmers. I myself am not satisfied at all with the training and particularly the courses at our agricultural colleges to which the sons of farmers and others go to qualify themselves further. I am not satisfied that they are receiving the proper training there which is required under the changed circumstances of the present time. I believe certain subjects are be ng taught that might as well be eliminated, and that many other subjects could be introduced which could be of much greater practical value to them in their subsequent careers, because 90 to 95 per cent or more of the agricultural college students ultimately go farming. They attend an agricultural college to qualify themselves as practical farmers, and I think many improvements can be made. Personally I feel so strongly about the matter that I recently when the Department was reorganized, appointed a departmental committee of capable and high ranking officials to investigate, at each of our agricultural colleges, the courses offered there, the subjects taught, the classification of subjects, and then to submit a report, with due regard to the needs in those various regions, and to recommend the changes that could be made and which changes should be made. I think therefore that the information the hon. member received from an official was given to him as a result of an investigation that is already being conducted. His informant is under the erroneous impression that we want to abolish the diploma course; we do not want to abolish the two-year course, the diploma course, but we wish to improve it and adapt it to the modern requirements, and we particularly wish to eliminate those things to which the hon. member has referred, namely the making of butter and cheese, which has no value at all to a practical farmer. We further wish to extend the short courses being offered to-day. It is one of the ways in which the young farmers can be helped considerably in a very short period. I personally have experience of such short courses. Short courses are being offered at the various agricultural colleges at the present time, courses that run over 14 days or three weeks or a month. I should like to extend those courses if I can—and that is one of the matters this Committee must investigate also—because I regard these courses as specialized courses for a short while for people who are particularly interested in that specific type of farming. I should just like to mention an example. I myself was a B.Sc. student at Stellenbosch University. I became a wine farmer later on, and viticulture as such was not my main subject. It was a subject I took for one year only, and at that time it was so theoretical that one could not make head or tail out of it, one did not come anywhere near wine making. I later returned for a 14-day course in viticulture. I found it not only interesting but so valuable that I can say to-day that the knowledge I acquired during that fortnight, together with what I read subsequently because of my interest in the matter, certainly did not make me one of the worst wine farmers, but helped me to make viticulture one of my main branches of farming in the Little Karoo, at Oudtshoorn, and I can assure hon. members that it was one of my most successful branches of farming in our versatile type of farming in the Little Karoo. I believe we can contribute much to the extension of those kinds of facilities.

Then the hon. member also said that the law provides that if I as Minister can make certain recommendations that certain things that fall under the provincial administration at the present time, namely agricultural education in the secondary schools, should be investigated by the Union Education Council in order to determine how it can be co-ordinated and possibly be put under the Department of Education. I shall take up the matter with the Minister concerned and see whether I can convince him that it is necessary that the Union Education Council should inquire into the matter.

I wish to thank the hon. member for Green Point (Maj. Van der Byl) for having made special mention of the benefits he and other farmers have derived as a result of the research of Professor Sim and his people with regard to natural grass grazing here in the western and south-western Cape. Their findings. which the hon. member has emphasized, was particularly interesting to me, namely that not only the old types of grass, very important types of grasses, which were fast disappearing, had been stabilized, but that the harmful weeds had been combated in a natural manner by the application of conservational farming practices, a method which is cheaper in the first place. That has been done merely by the application of other practices, by the natural replacement of noxious weeds by some of the most valuable grazing in our country. I may just say that in the Department we regard the question of grazing and grazing research as so extremely important, that where we usually had one director of Agriculture and Grazing, I have now split that division into two, and now we have, under the new organization, a director of Agriculture with his staff and a director of Grazing with his staff under the direction of Dr. Tidmarsh, who will devote special attention to this because the existence of the majority of the farmers of the Republic is based mainly on our natural grazing and the utilization thereof.

The hon. member for Swellendam (Mr. Van Eeden) has referred to blight-resistant wheats and the research that has been conducted and he lauded it. I thought he would say: “These young people we now have on research are not such good breeders as the old ones” because during last year particularly we had very serious failures and setbacks inasmuch as the new types of wheat that were issued did very well for one or two years and then all of a sudden they were attacked by blight or rust, to such an extent that I know that many wheat growers, particularly here in the western and the south-western Cape, suffered serious losses as a result of that. I can give him the assurance that that has nothing to do with the breeding. As soon as one remedy is found, the animals treated with that remedy become immune to that treatment. The same thing is happening here now. I am told by our experts in this field that certain deviations are taking place. They now notice that these blight spores and rust families develop another kind of blight spore next to them, to which the mother plant, which was not susceptible to it before, can now be very susceptible. This creates a new problem and it opens a very important and wide field for more intensive research in this field in the future.

The hon. member for Turffontein (Mr. Durrant) referred to the Tobacco Research Fund. It is quite correct that the money for that fund was voted three years ago. I think it was R 1,000,000. The hon. member says he noticed in the annual report that hardly anything has been spent. The fact of the matter is that we are making an annual contribution for research to that institute in addition. We are making a contribution on our ordinary Estimates of R253,780 per annum. The reason why nothing appears here, in respect of research, to indicate that anything has been spent on research and/or publicity and/or marketing matters from this fund for the tobacco industry, is this: I have appointed advisory committees representative of the industry for both the wine-growing industry as well as the tobacco industry, for both of which industries this fund has been established. The committees have been nominated by the industries themselves. They submitted names to me and I eventually appointed the committees. Those committees have been asked to advise us, more particularly with the assistance of our research workers and our scientists but also with the aid of the producers themselves who are now represented on the advisory boards, and to propose projects to which they would like priority to be given in respect of research or in respect of publicity with a view to better markets, etc. This committee, otherwise than in the case of the advisory committee for the wine industry, has not yet come forward with such a publicity project. The procedure is that when such a project is submitted, I refer that project to a committee consisting of the Secretary of the Treasury, the Secretary of Agricultural Economics and Marketing, the Secretary of my Department and the Secretary of Trade and Industries. Thereafter I can approve the project. When we receive a project born of the initiative of these people, a project that is good enough in our opinion, which is necessary enough, and which falls within the limits of this fund, we shall most certainly make the money available from the fund. But I just want to tell the hon. member that important research is being conducted, although it is not being financed from this fund. I know that too much tobacco is being produced. He said there are 20,000,000 lbs. of tobacco in South Africa from previous crops, in spite of the 21,000,000 lbs. exported last year. Now, that is true, but I do not know whether all of that is the surplus. It may have been carried forward from previous crops, but all of it is not necessarily the surplus. From that 20,000,000 lbs. provision has to be made for the requirements over a reasonable period of the manufacturers in this country, and that period may vary from eight months, which is about the minimum period in the case of certain kinds of tobacco, to a year and a half. I would not call those surpluses about which we need be concerned. I do not know whether those requirements have been taken into account, and whether the hon. member deducted it when he was referring to the 20,000,000 lbs.

The figure I quoted does not at all include the production for the present year, which is estimated at 54,000,000 lbs. It is anticipated that the surplus will be much more than 20,000,000 lbs.

Yes, it does not include this production. But tobacco must be somewhat matured before it is suitable for manufacturing purposes, and that is why a certain quantity of tobacco is always held over from the previous crop to supply the needs of the manufacturers. I am merely mentioning this, not to say that there is no surplus, but the fact of the matter is that in order to produce profitably in competition with the overseas market, the demands of that market must of course be met. The quality has to be improved; a change might have to be brought about in the best scientific methods of production of tobacco in this country. In other words, there must be research and extension services.

Now I should like to come to this point he made in regard to the necessity for research on seed beds. He says there is a difference between what my Department says and what the research station says. The practice is applied more in the Transvaal tobacco producing areas than in any other tobacco producing parts I know, to operate scientifically in the treatment and preparation of seed beds, and plants while they are still standing on the beds. In the parts where I hail from, we still cover the plant with Galenia africana. Hardly anybody there uses cheese cloth. As a practical farmer I should like to say this to the hon. member: I am not surprised that the one official says one should use plastic material while the other says one should use cheese cloth. Personally I would prefer cheese cloth, for the conditions under the cheese cloth are more in conformity with nature. Under cheese cloth the small plant receives the sunshine; it comes into more direct contact with moving light; the little plant is not as tender as under plastic material, although the plastic material might have other advantages which I do not want to go into. But I think both of these methods are suitable and commendable for use over plants in the seed beds. The main scientific requirement is that the soil should be clear of root diseases, of fungus, etc. It is really the main requirement because if a healthy plant can be taken out of the bed, and if there is certainty that diseases are not being transferred from the beds to the field, and if proper rotation cropping is applied in the fields, and if the tobacco stumps are taken out timeously, and the same piece of land is not planted for many successive years, I think the possibility of damage to the tobacco production per unit of land will be eliminated to a tremendous extent. It will lead to greater production per unit and to an increase in the quality of the tobacco.

The point I made is that the time has arrived for it to be made compulsory to apply certain measures.

We have no law whereby a farmer can be compelled for instance to deal with his seed beds in this or that manner. What we do is to tell the farmers that this is the correct manner. You plead with them to do so, but it is a strange thing that many of them will not follow our advice. Some do not want to follow our advice, others again do not feel like adapting themselves to modern circumstances; some do not care. It is strange, but a considerable percentage of our farmers simply will not follow the best advice given in their own interests. We have never yet thought of passing legislation for instance to make it compulsory in this instance for a farmer to treat his tobacco in this or that manner. Personally I am opposed to it in principle.

I accept the hon. the Minister’s apology. However, I should like to revert to the point and say that I am correct when I say there is one officer per hundred thousand morgen. I should like to mention the farms: Elandslaagte 22,600 morgen; Angelierpan, 12,000 morgen; Middelput, 8,000; Hartbeespan, 10,000; Kriek 18,600; Kombersbrand 18,600; Tietiespan 8,000. Altogether 98,000 morgen, and one locust officer controls that entire area, and it is impossible for him to destroy all the locusts on that enormous area of land. I was there myself; I spoke to the man myself and he told me that was the area under his control. What helped him was the fact that the farmers sent their employees out to look for the locusts, so that it was unnecessary for him to go and look for them. It helped him a lot because he could go straight to where the locusts were. But the position was impossible, with the result that the locusts matured there and laid eggs, and we can expect another outbreak of locusts there.

The other statement I made upon which the Minister cast doubt is in regard to soil erosion. I said I was concerned about the rate at which soil erosion is still taking place. I read this in the annual report—

Mr. Van der Merwe, one of the officers, spoke in the same vein at Paarl, and said that it was alarming. Now I return to what Dr. Ross said. This is from Hansard of two years ago. He said this—

I am making this point only to show that we should tackle the problem seriously. I admit openly that we are doing much to combat it but it is such a grave problem as regards the future of our soil that we cannot afford just to think it is going well, for it is not going well. Our own people are saying: “It is still going on at an alarming rate”. We must realize it is serious and we must employ more people to combat it.

The hon. member for Somerset East (Mr. Vosloo) has suggested that I said that no progress was being made, and that I quoted from a report from which he inferred that I intimated that no progress had been made, and then he read from another part where it was stated that progress had in fact been made. The excerpt I quoted was as follows:

It is said that progress is being made, but they add that this is not so in the case of all the farmers. As the Minister himself has said there are many farmers in the country who do not avail themselves of the services and the knowledge available to them. And I want that knowledge to be conveyed to them. The hon. member for Somerset East then said that there were other methods of conveying knowledge apart from using extension officers. While he was sleeping I referred to the fact that we were using the radio and periodicals, but I repeat it is not enough. It is not the best way to convey knowledge to the farmer. The best way is by means of extension officers and we must have more of these. The hon. member for Cradoek (Mr. G. F. H. Bekker) advised us to visit the agricultural colleges. We are grateful to him for that good advice but I think it is somewhat late. I think we know the agricultural colleges as well as he knows them. We use them; all our sons have been there. The officials of those colleges come to our town to give lectures. I want to congratulate the hon. member on his knowledge of animal husbandry and on the lecture he gave us; we appreciate it although I think the lecture Dr. Wouter Hugo gave us at Carnarvon not so long ago was more instructive.

The hon. member for Christiana (Mr. Wentzel) has once again said that he did not mislead us with that quotation. [Interjections.] It is not hairsplitting, Mr. Chairman. I have just read what Dr. Ross said. The point Dr. Ross made was this …

I do not wish to follow the previous speaker because he is about 10 years behind the times. The fact that in recent years we have had surpluses in all branches of the agricultural industry proves that Technical Services has helped the farmers to produce better In consequence of the guidance of Technical Services to the farmers, farming operations are being conducted on a much higher level than in the past because the farmers certainly do take notice of the information imparted to them. The result was that during the past 10-12 years production per morgen has nearly doubled.

I should like to ask Technical Services that before making information available to farmers, they should make tests over a period of a few years to determine whether that information may not lead to failures. If that information is not correct, it can have the effect that farmers suffer losses, with the result that in future they will not be so ready to accept the information given them. We know that in the past certain recommendations were made to farmers; which were accepted and put into effect. Subsequently they found it was not good advice and that is not a sound state of affairs. We find for instance that certain information covers a certain part of the country: there it is a success but when it is applied in another part, it is not so successful.

I know there are people who hold the view that extension officers should study for a shorter period even than at present, so that they may be available for extension services sooner. I do not advocate that; I shall rather urge that they should study a year longer. In other countries of the world the position is that such a person who passes his theoretical examinations first has to go and farm himself for one or two years and apply his theoretical knowledge in practice. If he cannot apply it successfully he cannot pass out as an extension officer. We know the farmer would like to see the result of an experiment before he himself will undertake it. If the extension officers cannot guide and help him, the farmer is not ready to accept that information.

Then I should also like to ask Technical Services to give further attention to the matter of hybrid seed maize, as this also falls under the Department now. We know the growing of hybrid seed maize is a difficult problem. The demand for seed has become increasingly great during recent years. If sufficient inspectors do not go around and see that those mealies are deplumed timeously, the proper hybrid maize seed cannot be obtained. One it deteriorates, and the farmers no longer have the confidence because they obtained poor seed at some time or another, they condemn hybrid maize seed as a whole without further ado. Where up to now it has been on a high level, and because there has been fairly good supervision, I know the Department has experienced some difficulties because people who were engaged in the hybrid maize seed business did not go over to the Department and there is a shortage of inspectors at the present time. I should like to appeal to the Department to make a plan somehow to make better provision as regards officials so that the maizegrowers as a whole may be reassured that the seed issued as hybrid seed has been subjected to thorough inspection and that it is good seed. Hybrid seed maize has meant a lot for the country as such; it has helped the farmers tremendously to obtain a greater return per morgen; it contributed to the country as such having enormous crops which has had the effect of earning much overseas capital for the country. That is why I should like to ask the hon. the Minister that particular attention should be given to that personnel as regards hybrid seed maize.

I should like to revert to the point I raised just now before the Minister replied. I do not want the hon. the Minister to commit himself to the suggestion I made this afternoon that certain measures should be applied by way of legislation as regards tobacco seedbeds. However, what I should like to ask is that the Minister should consider doing something. I should like to take my point a little further to show the Minister what the present position is. The suggestion I made this afternoon does not come from me alone; it is the general feeling among tobacco farmers who make their living from tobacco. The tobacco farmer of our country is not like a sheep farmer who possesses thousands of morgen, lets his sheep graze on the veld and earns a big income. A tobacco grower conducts his farming on a small piece of land. The return per morgen from tobacco growing is probably bigger than in the case of any other type of farming. Six morgen under tobacco can support a family of six in good circumstances. If the Minister inquires from his Department, he will find that in a constituency such as Marico and Rustenburg for instance, the majority of the farmers are farming on a small piece of land although they have a big income. If the Minister will make inquiries from the research station, he will find that they estimate the return per morgen at R2,000 if the man has farmed properly, as against a cost of about R160 to R200.

My next point is that a large proportion of the revenue of the State is derived from tobacco. The Minister loses sight of that fact. The Government derives about £60,000,000 to £70,000,000 per annum from the tobacco industry. If the farmers of the Transvaal, who produce about 80 per cent of our total tobacco crop, were to conduct their farming operations in the way the farmers here in the Western Province do it, who just grow a few seed under a tree, and produce about .6 per cent of the tobacco crop, all of them would have been insolvent already. However, the fact remains that there is over-production, although not of a high grade tobacco; there is overproduction of low grade tobacco. If the average price for tobacco were compared with the highest price and with the lowest price, it will be found that there is a difference of from as much as 38c per lb. to as little as 4c per lb. The Magaliesberg Co-operative, which is the biggest co-operative in the country, handles about 60 per cent of the total crop of the country, and according to their figures the bulk of the over-production consists of low-grade tobacco.

According to these Estimates, we are again this year going to vote R250,000 for research at one of the most outstanding tobacco stations in the world. We are doing so in order that this station may furnish the necessary information to the farmers, but does the Minister know what that research station itself says? They say, e.g. that less than 100 of the 4,000 tobacco farmers in the Brits and Rustenburg districts avail themselves of that information. We have the position that farmers producing tobacco on a small scale avail themselves of this information, but they are producing a low quality tobacco and the Co-operative is bound by law to take that production. Our own industry uses the high quality tobacco produced and we have to struggle to sell the low quality overseas. This sheep farmer opposite me says I am talking nonsense. What does he now about tobacco-growing? When he sells his wool it has to conform to certain standards, but the tobacco farmers, who provide the Government with more revenue than anybody else, may deliver his tobacco to the Co-operative in any way, and under the law the Co-operative is bound to take it. If there are farmers who avail themselves of the extension services on which we are spending so much money to produce a good quality tobacco, we must not permit them to suffer as a result of those other farmers who are not interested and are merely looking for an income.

There is no price at all for South African tobacco in comparison with the price of Rhodesian tobacco. Why is that? Because in Rhodesia they apply strict measures as to how a tobacco farmer should conduct his operations. I say to the Minister that we should ourselves do that also. The tobacco growers in general will welcome it.

If the Minister makes inquiries at the research station he will find that great losses were suffered last year in a certain area because a certain disease had broken out. Even the farmers who have been growing tobacco for years did not know what it was. The farmers planted out bed after bed, and the plants just died off on the land because the farmers did not know their beds had been infested. The reason for that was that there is no standard according to which those beds should be treated; the farmers are not obliged to deal with the beds in a certain manner.

I now come to the other point I raised in regard to the Tobacco Research Fund. As I pointed out, nothing has been done during the last three years. The Minister says he is in this predicament that he has appointed an advisory board and that he has not received any advice from them. I shall tell the Minister what the difficulty is. The difficulty is that the law is not clear. On that board all kinds of interested parties are represented. There are those who produce tobacco; those that manufacture tobacco and those who want to sell tobacco.

I want to bring two matters to the notice of the Minister and the Minister will understand that these platters are of great interest to us. The one is in connection with the droughts and the position in which our farmers find themselves in certain parts of the country as a result of foot-and-mouth disease control measures. The area which has been stricken longest by foot-and-mouth disease is the White area between the Letaba and the Olifants Rivers, an area which has practically been chronically subject to foot-and-mouth disease control measures during the past seven years. The reason for this is that it is an area which adjoins the game reserve where it is very difficult to apply control measures. The position is that an imaginary line, called the red line, has been drawn behind which control measures are applied permanently, but this red line is a good many miles from the border of the game reserve. During the past few years, the hon. the Minister has been busy with a scheme of fencing in our borders with a view to applying control measures more effectively. Control is less difficult in certain areas but it is very difficult along the game reserve and that was why the hon. the Minister started this fencing in that part. As you will realize, Sir, it is more difficult to control game than stock and consequently it is difficult to apply control measures alongside the game reserve with the result that our farmers have for a good many years found themselves practically permanently within a red line area. That gives rise to problems. Those people experience marketing difficulties and the farmers in the vicinity find it very difficult to dispose of their stock particularly during times of drought like the present. I wish to avail myself of this opportunity of making a suggestion to the Minister and to learn what he thinks about it and it is the following: Whereas the Minister has constructed a game resisting fence along the game reserve and whereas he has a second fence a few miles away from this fence, the farmers in that area are prepared, if the Minister is prepared to consider moving this second line— the red line which lies in the area of the farmers—closer to the game reserve and to construct a second fence with a road between the two, to bear 50 per cent of the costs if the State will bear the other 50 per cent. The existing fence is about 50 feet inside the game reserve area. In other words, if a second fence is erected on the farmers’ area there will be an area of 50 feet inside the game reserve area which can be patrolled. The Minister will probably first want to consult his officials because this is a highly technical matter. I cannot express an opinion but because it has created such a problem I am taking the liberty, after a period of seven years during which that area has experienced those difficulties, of making this suggestion to the Minister.

There is another matter which I want to raise and which I think has become one of urgent importance to the Republic of South Africa. Let me put it this way: During the past few years it has become evident that the agricultural industry is a growing industry. Not only has it expanded as far as its volume and scope in established directions are concerned, but our agriculture has also developed in new directions. There are a good many of them. I might just mention that during the past two years, for example, a flourishing trade has developed in the export of flowers to Europe. The information available to us at this stage shows that there are at least four products which are key products and which are very important products from the point of view of importation and which we can produce successfully in South Africa. I want to plead with the Department to regard research into this field as something which deserves the highest priority so as to make the Republic independent as far as this product is concerned as soon as possible. I want to mention the four products. To begin with you have coffee and tea, subjects which were recently discussed in the House, but then there are two others one of which is pyretrium, the toxin which is basic to-day to practically all sprays in the world, and the other one is papaïen. As far as coffee and tea are concerned, in reply to a question some time ago, the hon. the Minister replied and said that we knew the extent of the area where we could grow it successfully and that we also knew that it grew well there. But we have certain problems in this connection, mostly cultivation problems, more particularly the problem of selecting the varieties best suited to the Republic. I believe that while there are private concerns which have already spent money in this regard and which are already concerned in this, and while the acquisition of applied knowledge is a drawn-out and costly process, the Department should concentrate on certain basic research in order to give the correct guidance to the young industries as far as these two products are concerned. I just want to refer you to data relating to our overseas trade which show from which countries we import it: In regard to coffee I want to mention the following countries: Senegal, the Ivory Coast, Sierra Leone, the Congo, Angola, Northern and Southern Rhodesia, Tanganyika, Uganda, Kenya, Ethiopia, British West India, Puerto Rico, Guatamala, Nicaragua, Costa Rica etc. I can go mentioning numerous unfriendly countries in respect of each one of the four products from which we import. Coffee and tea alone are imported to the value of R20,000,000. That is why I think it is sufficiently important for us to pay attention to it.

I now want to discuss something else. We know at this stage that pyretrium which forms the basis, and which so far forms the most important basis in the world, of pest sprays, of which we import plus minus R 100,000 worth, can be produced locally. As far as this product is concerned Central Africa, Kenya and Tanganyika are to-day the most important producers. It so happens that they experimented with it in the southern States of America and in the United States. It can obviously only be cultivated successfully on the Continent of Africa and in East Asia. I now want to give you a very interesting figure, Sir. Two people who came from Kenya brought a certain selection of seed with them which was tested. I have been interested in this process for two years. The pyretrium flower comes from Turkey where it is not poisonous. It was then developed in Japan where it had a poisonous content of .5 per cent. It was then taken to the highlands of Kenya where its poisonous content is as high as 2.3 per cent. We have made experiments in the Republic where we planted the same flower and the result was that we produced a percentage poison of 3.2 per cent. In other words, as far as the poisonous content is concerned we have obtained a very high percentage. The Central African States are the biggest producers in the world and it is indeed the basis of our own spray manufacturing industry for the combating of pests and plagues. I believe that not only shall we be able to meet our own requirements but that we shall be able to develop an export trade and that we can become a large supplier on the world market. This is a product in respect of which it will not be so easy to boycott us because there is a very great worldwide shortage. We can produce it and we know at this stage that most continents, except Africa and Asia, cannot produce it. They have spent a great deal of money on experiments but without success. That is why I think we should give attention to this matter. It is sufficiently important. Also in the case of papaïen. This is also cultivated in East Africa. This product is obtained from the juice tapped from the pawpaw. There are, however, certain technical problems which the ordinary individual simply cannot overcome. Certain basic research work has to be done. These problems are connected with the production process. The individual cannot carry out that research and my plea to the Minister is this that, also as far as this is concerned, he should have the necessary research conducted because this is an opportunity for us to become a world producer of a product we know we can produce. [Time limit.]

I want to take up the cudgels on behalf of the research section of the Department. It is regrettable that we have had somewhat sneering remarks about the Department this afternoon, because the success which we have achieved in the agricultural field in South Africa is to a very large extent due to the research section of this Department. The first matter I wish to raise is tuberculosis amongst Friesland cattle particularly in the Transvaal. This dreaded disease has greatly reduced the production capacity of our herds there. The Department has, however, produced a very good vaccine against it and we have already obtained wonderful success but I am afraid we are not going far enough. In certain areas it is compulsory to inoculate against anthrax for example. I want to go so far as to say that the Department should make it compulsory that all Friesland herds and all milk-producing herds in the Transvaal should be inoculated against this dreaded disease. If proper control is exercised it will be possible to eliminate this disease completely and to render it completely harmless.

The second matter which I want to raise is the mortality rate amongst calves. Some time ago it was almost impossible in certain parts of the Transvaal to breed. They died just before birth or immediately after birth. I am referring to the incidence of paratyphoid. In this regard too the Department has done wonderful work and by injecting the cow beforehand to-day it has become possible to overcome this dreaded disease. I once again want to appeal to the hon. the Minister to apply stricter measures in connection with this disease. South Africa cannot afford to lose as many calves as we are to-day. With a population figure of something like over 20,000,000 the number of cattle in our country will definitely have to be increased and where the number of breeding cattle has remained stationary for many years without increasing and where marketing methods have changed completely, the country simply cannot afford to continue to lose calves at the present rate.

I now come to another matter in connection with which a great deal of research was conducted some time ago but in respect of which I am afraid no progress is being made. I refer to poisonous shrub diseases particularly in the Transvaal, the ordinary poisonous shrub and the “gou-gou” disease which appears in large areas of the Transvaal. You get poisonous shrub practically throughout right up to the Union Buildings in Pretoria. A fair amount of success has been achieved, or fairly good progress has been made in this regard but research in this connection has apparently come to a standstill. I am not blaming anyone because I am not 100 per cent sure but the fact remains that poisonous shrub is claiming the same number of victims to-day as in the past. I want to make a serious appeal to the Minister and the Department to expedite research in this regard and if necessary even to make more money available for it. I again want to point out that, as in those other cases to which I have referred, in this case too, severe cattle losses are suffered in the Transvaal and even in respect of the sheep population. We simply cannot afford it. I can assure you, Sir, that there are thousands of morgen of excellent grazing in the Transvaal which are absolutely useless during the period from the end of July, August and September when poisonous shrub is at its peak and immediately thereafter the “gou-gou” disease sets in which is caused by a plant which closely resembles the poisonous shrub. The ordinary man can hardly tell the difference. I want to make an earnest appeal that further research should be conducted and that more money should be spent on it. Believe me, Sir, as somebody who knows, I know there are good reasons for this request of mine.

I also want to take up the cudgels on behalf of a region which stretches from the perimeter of Pretoria for 40 miles towards the east traversing the districts of Bronkhorstspruit, Witbank, Middelburg even as far as Belfast and Wonderfontein. It is a stretch of land 40 miles wide and approximately 100 miles long. I just want to describe a small portion of it. About 15 years ago there were 11 flourishing schools in the district of Bronkhorstspruit, immediately north of the town itself. Fifteen years later three schools remain which are struggling to exist for the simple reason that the White people can no longer live there. They had to move because they could not make a living there. I know his Department is very sympathetic towards this matter. I have already been in touch with Dr. Du Plessis who, together with other technical people went there to investigate the position beforehand and to consult with organized farming in the Bronkhorstspruit district. I want to plead with the Minister (I shall tell you beforehand, Sir, why I am making this plea) that where that White farmer has disappeared, where he has moved to the city to make a living, the Bantu has taken his place and I make bold to say that the platteland there has become more depopulated than anywhere else in South Africa. I think this matter is receiving the attention of the Minister because it has been brought to the notice of the Department on numerous occasions. I want to ask the Minister to view the position of that important part of our country very sympathetically. The climate there is very variable. The rainfall is good sometimes and in those years when it is good the crops are good and the farmers get renewed hope. Then suddenly they experience a number of bad years and poverty increases. Hence my plea to the Minister to view that part with great sympathy because in the long run it will cost the State more to rehabilitate those people. And what is to become of that land? Surely it cannot be disregarded just like that. Hence my plea that the Department and the Minister should give this matter their special attention. I make bold to say that if a little more assistance is given than is given at the moment something good may indeed be born of it. I want to plead for a new approach on the part of the Government and the Cabinet. During the years I have been sitting here money has repeatedly been voted, year after year, to ensure that Sasol, that big economic undertaking in South Africa, remains on its legs, and Sasol has ultimately become a great bulwark in the economy of South Africa. Why can the same policy not be followed in respect of some sections of agriculture? My plea to the Government and the Minister is that their approach to this matter should be one of whether we can afford to allow that stretch of land of 40 miles wide and 100 miles long to become useless? We simply cannot. The State will eventually have to adopt the attitude which was adopted by the Americans in the case of the Tennesee Valley where it cost them many millions to rehabilitate the people in that area. As in the case of the Tennessee Valley we shall have to spend large sums of money to rehabilitate that area but that is not necessary. I want to plead with the Government to consider establishing industries there, if necessary. I have in mind, for example, a cheese factory, a condensed milk factory or a canning factory. If we could, in the case of Sasol, inject the economy of the country artificially in order to get that industry going and ultimately to have it established as the giant which it is, why cannot we do likewise in the case of a large section of our agriculture? We shall ultimately have to face up to this big problem in South Africa that the country will be unable to feed its people and that every available inch of land will have to be made use of. There we have a piece of land which can be fertile if it is used to its full potential. I am therefore pleading with the Department to-night to view this matter sympathetically and with the Minister to view it in a more than sympathetic light. I know it can easily be said that it is simply impossible because other parts of the country will raise a similar plea. If Sasol could plead for it, somebody could come and plead for a Sasol at Aliwal North or for a Sasol somewhere else. But if a certain section of the country requires special financial assistance from the State, not only technical assistance, it must get it. [Time limit.]

I do not want to follow the hon. member in what he has said, except to say that where he pleads for a certain section of the Transvaal the same plea can be made in respect of a great many areas of the country. He spoke about an area which falls in a low-rainfall area. I have in mind an area which falls in a very high rainfall area, namely, the area between the towns of Utrecht and Paulpietersburg. There is a large area there which has become depopulated, an area which has a very high rainfall but where it is a fact that there are no more farmers and that it has now become Black. If, therefore, the hon. the Minister accedes to the request of the hon. member, I think the Department should conduct a survey to ascertain which areas of the country are becoming more depopulated than others and what attention should be paid to those areas.

Have they also got poisonous shrub there?

No, and it has a very high rainfall. The people have only just left it and it is not my task to find out why they have moved away. That is the task of the Department and the hon. the Minister. I just want to say that I find it exceedingly difficult to address a Minister whom I can hardly see. He is sitting so far away that I shall have to get a pair of binoculars to be able to see him. We have this further difficulty, Sir, a difficulty which so many other members experience namely that hon. members do not talk to the Minister, but to the officials of the Departments.

When I availed myself of the half-hour last year I paid high tribute to the officials of the hon. Minister’s Department and I want to do so again to-day. I want to repeat that they give us guidance where we ask for it. But today, however, I want to seek guidance in a totally different direction. I realize that the bases of long-term agriculture and farm planning are research, veterinary services, the services of extension officers, the services rendered by the agricultural faculties at our universities and agricultural colleges. I admit all that, but in addition to that I want to draw attention to the fact that we have 28,000 fewer farmers than we had a few years ago and I want to try to find the reason for that. Mr. Chairman, do you know to what I attribute that? I attribute it to this that economic planning has not kept pace with all the guidance which is given to us. I think the farmers are getting tired of being told by leaders in the farming industry, leaders of the South African Agricultural Union, by the hon. the Minister, by members of his Department, by everybody who talks about farming matters, that they should reduce their production costs and that they should produce more efficiently. I maintain that the farmers have done so as far as it has been possible to do so. I want to issue this challenge, and I trust the hon. the Minister will regard it in the spirit in which it is issued, namely, that he should purchase farms in the various areas of South Africa where they go in for different types of farming, and to have farming operations conducted there with the assistance of Agricultural Technical Services so that we can see what success the Department will make of those farming units. You see, Sir, the difficulty is this: We get advice from people who have unlimited funds at their disposal. I was particularly interested to note certain facts in the Estimates. I want to mention one, namely, the Research Institute for Stock Breeding and Dairy products: The acquisition of stock for experimental purposes R25,000; the acquisition of studbook and breeding stock R6,000; R27,400 was spent on laboratory equipment; feed, fertilizer, etc. for the farm amounted to R 16,800. The milk recording scheme does not come under this, but that was R13,000 and I take it that a farmer must introduce a milk recording scheme. In addition you have beef standard scheme, R11,000. This is our difficulty. We send our children to the agricultural colleges. We get the extension officers on our farms and they advise us. But the advice which is given to us entails unlimited expenditure. We are advised how to plant and what to plant, what fertilizer we should use, how we should cultivate the soil, the soil is examined— machinery does not really come under the ambit of the Department—but our greatest problem is and remains how to use our capital. That remains the most important single factor responsible for past failures in farming, except, of course, droughts and hail, etc. But in the ordinary course of events it is because the farmers spends his capital in the wrong way that he fails.

Order! The hon. member should raise that under “Agricultural Economics and Marketing”.

I beg your pardon, Mr. Chairman, I am not talking about what the farmer receives for his product. I am talking about capital investment even before anything is produced.

I am sorry, but the hon. member must abide by my decision. That falls under “economics”.

I that case, may I ask the hon. the Minister, where other countries have a department of farm planning attached to their department of agricultural services, whether he will consider creating such a Department of Farm Planning in his Department. I notice that in West Germany steps are taken particularly in connection with capital planning, farm planning and particularly to strike a balance between the various matters, as, for example, a balance between stock and the feed which is produced there, and the machinery required and the area in which the farming is conducted. Special steps have been taken in this connection. Of course, in America their Department of Agricultural Technical Services do fantastic planning for the 3,500,000 American farmers. Our difficulty in South Africa is that we do not have a Department to work out a ratio for us and that in most cases the farmer spends his liquid capital in the wrong way; for example, he spends it on land where he should have spent it to cover current expenditure, on machinery; or he may use it to buy stock whereas he should not have done so or he uses it for that purpose and buys the wrong type of sheep for that area of the country. That is the one aspect which is not sufficiently catered for in our agricultural planning. [Time limit.]

Various hon. members have asked for research to-day. Some members pleaded for research in connection with various grasses, others pleaded for research in connection with vaccines, etc. I also want to say something this evening in connection with research and I want to mention a particular field of research, a field which is of great importance to agriculture as a whole. I want to refer to research in connection with rain in particular. As you know, Sir, it has become the habit lately to try to produce rain by means of rockets. There are two different methods which are followed in particular and the first is to spray silver iodine on the clouds with the use of an aeroplane. It is sprayed over the cloud in liquid form through the exhaust pipe of the aeroplane and those small crystals of silver iodine condense the moisture and eventually it rains. I personally have had the privilege of being in such an aeroplane for a whole day in order to make rain and it was a success. Lately, however, a new method is being followed and that is to fire those silver iodine crystals into the air by means of rockets to a height of from 3,000 to 10,000 feet and to “milk” the clouds, as the farmers call it, in that way. Various countries produce rain in this way to-day, countries like Australia, America, Texas and West Germany.

Naturally in South Africa various objections will be raised to that method of research into rain making on the part of the Churches. I do not want to go into the question of whether it is a sin or not. Suffice it to say, perhaps, that recently three well known theologians, namely Dr. Van Wyk De Vries of the Gereformeerde Church, Dr. Nicol of the D.R. Church and Professor B. Engelbrecht of the Hervormde Church approved of this method of rain making. I can quite understand that in South Africa where for centuries prayer days have been held for rain if it did not rain, it will be difficult to accept this idea of rain making. Prayer days will, of course, always still be necessary because I believe that our Creator controls the destiny of man in all respects. But I do believe that one should try to enlist the aid of the elements and that the Creator did indeed intend man to use his brains in such a way as to inspan the elements for his material preservation. In that way, for instance, we are doing everything in our power to prevent frost, we erect windbreaks to break the wind and I do not think that is a particular sin. I do not, for instance, think that the people on the other side of Worcester where they only get 12 inches of rain per annum sin more than those this side of the mountain where the rainfall is 40 inches per annum; or that the people in India where the rainfall is 1,000 inches per annum sin less than those in Israel which consists of a desert. However, I want to come to the real point I want to make. I think this method of rain making has many advantages. It is unnecessary for me to tell, you, Sir, what damage is suffered every year because of droughts, hail, etc. For example, last year a farmer in South West lost about 450 of his best cattle because of the drought. Droughts cost this country millions of rand per annum. The method which has been used lately, however, namely rockets, definitely has a disadvantage and it is in that respect that I want the attention of the Minister. This method of firing rockets is being used on an increasing scale. There is a firm in Cape Town which manufactures those rockets on a very large scale and you can expect rockets to be used on an ever increasing scale in years to come. We know, of course, that they are dangerous things. We know of the farmer in the Western Province who stood with a rocket in his hand when it exploded. But there are also dangers inherent in this method. The danger exists, for instance, that certain farmers who can afford it will continue to milk the clouds and others who cannot afford it will simply not get any clouds over their farms. You will have the position that it rains in some places while others experience severe droughts. I must add, of course, that all clouds are not rain-bearing clouds. It has to be the cumulus nimbus cloud. But if the position is allowed to go on uncontrolled as it is to-day, other dangers may also flow from it. One disadvantage is that one farmer, for instance, through jealousy, may shoot at a cloud with a rocket so that it rains on his neighbour’s farm and damages his dam. [Laughter.] There is room for various irregularities and I am asking the Minister to do something about it. He may think this is something far-reaching but I predict that within ten years’ time such extensive use will be made of rockets that we shall have to consider controlling the position timeously. The question which arises in my mind is whether the time has not arrived for the Department of Agricultural Technical Services to start research work to ascertain in which areas of South Africa rain making experiments can be conducted. I do not think it can be done everywhere. Unless you have the specific cloud your rockets are useless. It will be of no avail, therefore, to try to make rain in that way everywhere. But the question which arises in my mind is whether the time has not arrived for the Department to think about the question of rain making. Will we not, for example have various stations in 20 years’ time at strategic points where silver iodine can be sprayed on the clouds so that it rains and other places where you can ensure that the clouds shed their hail in the form of rain before it does any damage. This is perhaps a subject which we will discuss light-heartedly to-night but we should not forget that with the success which has been achieved recently this is a matter to which we shall have to give our pertinent attention within the next few years and the sooner we do so the better.

As opposed to what the hon. member for Gardens (Mr. Connan) had to say about soil conservation I want to express my sincere appreciation for the tremendous progress which has recently been achieved in that regard. Where the hon. member referred to Dr. Ross I challenge him to deny that it is more than eight years ago that Dr. Ross made that statement and if he denies it I challenge him to give the date when Dr. Ross said it. It was a long time ago and that may have been the position at that time but great progress has been made with the planning of farms which was not the case when Dr. Ross made those remarks; there has been tremendous progress as far as soil conservation is concerned; we have practical proof of it. We think of the irrigation dams, particularly in the Karoo, like Grass Ridge and Lake Arthur and the Van Ryneveld Dam. Those dams were empty for years and why were they empty? Not because there has been a drop in the rainfall because that has not dropped. I have been keeping a rain register for 50 years and instead of the average rainfall dropping there has been an increase over the last number of years but in spite of that those dams have been empty. Those dams are, however, situated in a dry part of the country where the country is flat and where the water runs away very quickly. The reason why those dams are empty is the great progress the farmers have made in connection with soil conservation because the Government has made the services available to plan those farms. If the hon. member wishes to argue with me about that he should get into an aeroplane and fly over the Karoo and see the dams of water dotted all over. That is the reason. The reason is not because there has not been any progress in regard to soil conservation but the opposite. He says if it goes on like this we shall not be producing enough food for the nation but he knows for a fact that that is not going on. Why does he say it? Is it not to create a wrong impression in this House? He knows that is not the position yet he says it is.

There are a few matters which I should like to bring to the notice of the Minister in connection with animal herds, stock diseases and the eradication of weeds. I am not going to talk about jointed cactus because we know what the Government is doing in that regard but I do want to draw it to the attention of the Minister that there is no doubt about it that prickly pear is increasing. A tremendous amount has been done in the past to eradicate that pest and great success has been achieved, but for some reason or other the prickly pear is again increasing. I am not saying that the Government should make large teams available to do the work but the Government should assist the farmers with the necessary sprays so that they can do the work themselves. It is in the interests of the farmer to keep his farm clean. I am not asking the Government to undertake the task of eradicating the prickly pear. The farmer must do so himself but the necessary means should be made available to him.

There is another plague which worries me greatly and that is the spear thistle. I wonder whether every farmer knows the spear thistle. I have seen farms with spear thistle along the road but nothing is done about it. That makes me come to the conclusion that everybody does not know it. If you have experience of the extent to which spear thistle can increase, Sir, you will realize to what a state it can reduce the country within a short space of time because it spreads very quickly. Then you have the burweed. There was a time when our wool had a bad reputation on the world market as a result of the burweed and I am afraid that the burweed is again increasing. I do not know what method can be followed but I think the Minister should again make inspectors available to ascertain to what extent those weeds are being eradicated. I most honestly say—and I hope I shall not be victimized on account of this—that I do not know when last there was a weed inspector on my farm. True I am notified that I must eradicate weeds but you do not really need that notice because you realize what will happen to your farm if you do not eradicate those weeds. Spear thistle, however, is very difficult to eradicate because you may be standing alongside it without seeing it and it spreads very rapidly. I want to ask the Minister to take steps to ensure that the farmer keeps his farm clean. Some people are somewhat careless. Perhaps I am one of them but that is no excuse why I should not be pressed if I neglect to do my duty.

I now come to stock diseases. My experience is that internal parasites are increasing amongst our herds. I want to pay tribute to Onderstepoort for the wonderful work they are doing in connection with the combating of stock diseases; I think Onderstepoort is famous throughout the world and the technicians there have acquired world fame; the whole world is making use of Onderstepoort. I am assured, however, that some internal parasites become immune to certain medicines that are used in which case those special medicines no longer help. That is why I want to ask that Onderstepoort should continue to investigate the question of internal parasites. There is one thing which worries me greatly and that is the tick which causes paralysis. It does not matter if you get this tick amongst your sheep because you know you can get rid of it by dipping the sheep but the trouble lies with the game in your veld. [Time limit.]

Before we go any further I should like to reply to the points which have been raised so far. During his second speech the hon. member for Gardens (Mr. Connan) again insisted that we should expedite our soil conservation activities as much as possible. I want to tell the hon. member that with a view to the debate this evening I have issued a statement to the Press this morning for publication to-morrow which may interest him and which meets his demands which we all want to see in operation. I want to read it—

It is, therefore, expected that all farmers will make an immediate start. To ensure that immediate attention is given to the soil conservation measures as prescribed in the district plans the Soil Conservation Board and responsible farmers have insisted that soil conservation and fire protection committees and regional heads be clothed with the necessary authority to take active steps. I have now decided to accede to this request which has emanated from the farming community itself. This means that I have agreed that action be taken against persons who deliberately persist in ignoring fire and soil conservation rules. Details in this connection will be sent by my Department this week to all regional and soil conservation and fire protection committees and I suggest that where farmers are in doubt as to their responsibility they should get in touch with the bodies concerned. I hope that the soil conservation and fire protection committees will exercise their new authority with the greatest circumspection and sympathy, though in a responsible and thorough manner in the interests of the future of our farmers and our country.

I appeal to all and sundry, therefore, to throw in their weight with the Department and the committees so as to promote conservation works and thus make it necessary to take action in terms of the law.

I now want to come to the hon. member for Turffontein. I just want to say that the major part of his speech in which he dealt with the marketing of tobacco really falls under the Agricultural Economics and Marketing Vote. The hon. member for Ladybrand (Mr. Keyter) especially asked that we should see to it that where the Department is responsible for the breeding and distribution of hybrid maize seed it does not supply farmers with seed of a doubtful quality and that we should not give information of which we are not 100 per cent sure; that we must first test such information thoroughly before making it available. He also said that the tests should be carried out over longer periods. He says our people just say you must do this and that and that we generalize over the whole country. I do not know where the hon. member gets that idea from. We have not got experimental farms throughout South Africa with its different soils and climatic conditions. We try to spread our experimental farms as much as possible so as to cover the most important departures—because the climate and the soil differ—and in order to give the best possible information. Tests are, of course also carried out in addition on a co-operative basis. I want to assure the hon. member, however, that we shall guard against carelessness because my experience has been that one farmer can advise another and if that advice proves to be wrong it is not taken so greatly amiss but the faith and confidence which the farmers have in the Department and its extension officers and its scientists are shaken if they get scientific advice in regard to the application of certain methods or practices which have not been thoroughly tested and that is why it is the policy to warn our people to be as careful as possible.

The hon member for Zoutpansberg (Mr. S. P. Botha) pleaded for a double fence along the borders of the Kruger Game Reserve. I just want to tell him that we are continually protecting our borders against stock diseases from outside and before we have finished the single fence we cannot think about erecting a double fence. That area is so close to the game reserve and so subject to foot and mouth disease that you never know when there is going to be another outbreak. That is the reason for the preventive measures which we are taking and for the existence of the red line which we have there. He also asked that research should be undertaken so as to make us more independent in regard to the cultivation of new agricultural products like coffee and tea. I can assure him that we as a Department are doing everything in our power to give expert guidance in that regard to farmers. As far as coffee is concerned we have recently employed the services of an expert. He has been transferred to Natal which we think is eminently suitable for the cultivation of that product. As far as tea planting is concerned which, I think, is faced with fewer problems if planted in the right area and in the right climate, we are cultivating tea in practice with the assistance of the I.D.C. and experts who have become available to us. We are still in a liquid state but I think it will lead to the erection of a factory where the tea which is thus produced will be processed, because I regard that as one of the products which can be beneficially cultivated by people who do not have much land available. As far as pyrethrum is concerned, which is really the basis of all sprays, our information is that it grows easily in many parts of South Africa. I do not think we shall encounter any production difficulties in that regard and my information is that a private undertaking has already formed itself into a company to undertake the processing of this product once it is cultivated on a sufficiently large scale. As far as the other product is concerned, I know very little about it but as soon as we get the necessary experts in that regard we shall also pay attention to its production.

The hon. member for Pretoria (District) (Mr. Schoonbee) said he should like to see more research in regard to that very fertile area but after he had described that area to me it did not appear to me to be such a very fertile area, although he did add that it was an area which presented a problem. He wants us to make it one of the sub-regions. I am not saying we shall not do so but I just want to say to the hon. member that unfortunately, as a result of various factors, there are many other areas besides that one which are problem areas and where the existence of the farmers is seriously threatened. Nevertheless we shall give as much attention as possible to those problems. He referred to poisonous shrub and various diseases, such as “gou gou” disease. As far as poisonous shrub is concerned research has been conducted and a spray invented with which the shrub can be sprayed effectively but what we did find in certain areas… [Interjections.] Yes, it kills the leaf but we have found in other areas where the same spray is used the leaf does not die for some reason still unknown to us. We find this phenomenon that there must be a difference in the resistance to certain poisons or sprays in regard to the same plant or else the two plants are not the same in spite of the fact that they practically look alike. Because in the one area the spray is practically 100 per cent effective not only as far as the leaf is concerned but it also goes down to the root whereas it is much less effective in other parts. As far as the “gou gou” disease is concerned we are still studying that but we have not yet found a solution for that.

In the first place I want to thank the hon. member for Drakensberg (Mrs. S. M. van Niekerk) for wanting to have a closer look at me. It is a long time since anybody has made such a friendly remark about me, because most people say I must keep my distance. She addressed me in such a fine spirit that I do not want to spoil it by not replying to her in the same spirit. She said provision was made in the Estimates for certain expenditures. Quite right, it appears there, but all that expenditure is not in connection with one experimental farm; some of it is general expenditure connected with the experimental farms, as for example, the acquisition of stud stock to “stock” the agricultural farms properly. The other expenditure to which she has referred is expenditure which covers all our experimental farms. That expenditure was not incurred for effective farming on a single farm. [Interjections.] The hon. member must not interrupt me. She is wrong in thinking that all the experiments which are carried out on the Government farms are done at State expense and that the economic side of farming itself is not taken into account. If the hon. member does not want to listen to me I shall go on to reply to the next member.

The hon. member for Middelland (Mr. Van der Merwe) said we should milk the clouds; that we should shoot rockets. I am afraid the milking activities of my Department are confined to the animal world alone. I am not laughing at his suggestion because we know very little about it as yet but I think that should be raised more appropriately under another Vote. I am not even quite sure whether research in that direction falls under the hydrogen research section of the Department of Water Affairs or whether it falls under the C.S.I.R. or whether it falls under the Meteorologist Department of the Minister of Transport.

The hon. member for Kimberley (District) (Mr. H. T. van G. Bekker) spoke about stock diseases. He said that a great deal had been done in this respect and he also paid tribute to the Department. He then referred to a plague in respect of which the Department has already done a great deal and spent a great deal of money in combating and eradicating it. He said that this plague was once again manifesting itself on an increasing scale. The plague to which he referred is the prickly pear and I take it that he includes jointed cactus and other plagues of a similar nature. I want to assure the hon. member that the Department provides farmers with material free of charge to combat this plague—such as arsenic-pentoxide. The Department also provide certain sprays as on certain conditions for the eradication of jointed cactus. It is only if farmers collect prickly pears in heaps that they are provided with the necessary sprays. That is a condition so that the Department can keep the costs of eradicating it to the minimum. Otherwise it costs too much. He also talked about the eradication of burweed and the appointment of more weed inspectors. I know the Department has an insufficient number of inspectors but here too we must take the annual expenditure into account. Certain weeds have been declared although they have not been declared national plagues. Because they have not been declared national plagues it means that the Department is of the opinion that these plagues can be controlled by the farmers themselves. The burweed is one of these. The Government think that the farmers themselves should undertake its eradication. As you will notice from page 75 of the Annual Report of the Secretary of Agricultural Technical Services our inspectors have made 6,922 inspections and served 5,196 notices on farmers. There were altogether 15 prosecutions.

I must say that in general we find that farmers are anxious to keep their farms clear of noxious weeds. Because that is the natural instinct of the farmer we have only had 15 prosecutions. If you make it the practice to prosecute immediately if a farmer is slightly lax you will encounter more resistance and opposition on the part of farmers than co-operation. What is important and essential when it comes to the eradication of these sort of plagues, viewed in the light of all the various other tasks which the Department has to fulfil in the interests of agriculture, is the co-operation of the farmers. That is why we try to act in such a way that we take them with us instead of estranging them from ourselves.

Mr. Chairman, I ask for the privilege of the second half-hour.

I am sorry that the hon. the Minister who started off by expressing his pleasure for what has been said by the hon. member for Drakensberg should end up rather disasterously in his final remarks to her. It was obviously not her fault, Sir.

I should like to make a plea to the hon. the Minister and to ask him to reconsider what he said in a speech recently. It seems to me that what he said there, he said with some pride, i.e. that he had avoided a second veterinary school. Now, I can think of no more disasterous decision by a Minister who is responsible for such a large number of cattle and other animals in the country. It seems to me that he decided merely on the grounds of expediency that such a school was not necessary. Moreover, he seems to me to be thinking that the number of veterinary surgeons being turned out is the only criterion on which to judge. This attitude shows an ignorance, which is excusable perhaps, of the true value of a scientific school, of a school which deals with living creatures. No-one who has had anything to do with medical schools, whether for animals or for humans, or for plants, could possibly fail to appreciate the immense value of these schools which lies not so much in the students or the qualified practitioners which are turn out but in the learning which they spread around them. Their value is in the steady rise of the quality of practitioners within an area of about 100 miles around them. It is an accepted fact with anybody who is connected with this type of school that it raises the whole standard of work: It affords practitioners in the neighbourhood an opportunity of meeting the academicians, the leaders in their profession and of discussing their problems with one another, of obtaining second opinions from highly graded men which they cannot otherwise obtain; it enables scientific societies to have meetings with the leaders; it enables postgraduate courses to be instituted. Merely because they can slip in another 15 students is to my mind a very sad remark coming from the responsible Minister The hon. the Minister went further in his speech and said it was a question of teachers. But the Minister has no shortage of teachers. He has 99 veterinarians, five veterinary pathologists, 14 physiologists— there is no medical school in the country with half that number—he has 163 analytical chemists, 27 bio-chemists and eight parasitologists on his staff. I presume, of course, that some of these are not at the school for veterinary surgery because they must be out doing field work. The fact, however, is that all his eggs are in one basket and he should know what happens to eggs when that basket is dropped. It only requires a fire or a small epidemic amongst the staff for the bulk of the veterinary work in this country to come to a standstill. The whole of his laboratory, Sir, are replaceable as regards manufacturing. That is where he does all his manufacturing. He has at least one diagnostic laboratory elsewhere— he may have more of them although I do not know. But the whole of the veterinary manufacturing powers of this country, all the possibilities of manufacturing vaccines and sera to be kept in one institution is a tragedy. Moreover, it is a tragedy which could develop into a catastrophe.

Here we have the possibility of having a second medical school. They are turning away students—the hon. Minister has said so himself. They are turning students away, so there is no shortage of students. There are certainly also no shortage of patients. I repeat my plea to the hon. the Minister to reconsider his decision in this regard. He should think again about this matter; he should give it the weight it justifies; and he should call into consultation his leaders in order to find out whether they do not think that something should be done. There is no manufacturing firm in this country making vaccines or sera to any great extent. We are almost entirely dependent upon our own resources. It is time that these resources are duplicated so that a catastrophe will be unlikely to happen.

I should also like to ask the hon. the Minister to link more closely with the medical profession. If he does establish a second school he should place it with the medical school where the laboratories can be of assistance to him. His predecessor had the wisdom to keep research resources out of the C.S.I.R. These were kept independent. This has been to their advantage. But now, with the changing in the type of bacterial infestation, and with the use of antibiotics which is primarily responsible for this change, the time has come for the two professions to come together because the amount of interchange of disease from animal to human and vice versa is increasing. There are diseases among the animals which we in medicine do not recognize as the same one in the human. The opposite too, holds good. So that if the research resources of these two bodies could be brought together, it would be to their mutual advantage and it would mean a greater measure of economy. But even more, it would be to the benefit of both animals and humans. I am not alone in this opinion. I want to read from the report of the Du Toit Commission of Inquiry into the co-ordination of medical research. In paragraph 329 of that report it is stated that—

Now, this ideal solution is the union of the human medical research with the veterinary medical research. It will mean a saving in laboratories and both sides would benefit.

My final plea to the Minister is to allow the veterinary profession to grow up. It is now 30 years since the Veterinary Board was established. During that time, according to the Minister, there were 131 veterinary surgeons in the country of whom 44 were in private practice—in other words, only one-third were in Government employ. It is understandable that a profession like veterinary surgery and veterinary medicine, where the main problem is the control of epidemics, the control of disease in large quantities and in large bulk should, in the early days, come under Government control. It is true that on the Veterinary Board there are three members nominated by the Veterinary Society but the stranglehold which the hon. the Minister has on the Veterinary Board is that he nominates the chairman as well as the vice-chairman. It is time that he considers freeing these people and letting them grow up. This profession tied down to one school and tied down to the Department which more or less dictates its policy, is hog-bound and cannot grow up nor can it spread its wings and go forth as a liberal profession should. It will do a lot of good if the Department itself has to deal with an independent profession. If you deal with a single school the tendency is towards inbreeding. Inbreeding, of course, is a magnificent thing so long as there are no weak genes. It does not matter if all the genes are good ones. It does not matter so long as there are no weak points. But the moment you introduce even one weak link it spreads and you get the tendency towards an authoritarian school. That tendency always exists where there is no competition. The absence of competition with the school and with the Department, the absence of ability of any of the outside veterinarians to argue to any extent with the Department—all tend to weaken the Department not to strengthen it. It tends perhaps to give a feeling of security to the Minister of to the head of his Department, but it does not lead to freedom of thought nor to freedom of research. We know that the Veterinary Laboratory is of a high standard, we know that it was giving a high standing from the day it was founded. If, as the Minister says, there is more research coming out of it and if it is what the Minister says it is then that is so despite the control and not because of it.

I want amongst other things to exchange a few words with the hon. the Minister in connection with game-proof fences and water holes along the Limpopo River. I do this particularly with a view to the foot-and-mouth disease scourge that we had there. Fortunately that scourge has blown over for the time being. We are very grateful for the R200 for water holes, whether they are water holes in a river or a borehole, and R500 for the unit. The hon. the Minister knows that the farmers in that vicinity were not too happy about this. They wanted an increase. We did everything in our power with the assistance of the information that we received from the Department to make the farmers understand that this was only to assist them and was not full compensation. It must be regarded as such, I because the farmers will have the use of those facilities from now on. I can only hope and trust that as time goes on the farmers will be satisfied with the position and leave the matter at that. But I cannot make any promises that no new representations will be made to the hon. the Minister.

That will not help.

We have learnt to accept these things in this way, to remain good friends and then to ask again. All that we can do now is to ask for the utmost consideration in connection with the riparian grazing and water holes in the river, particularly with a view to the critical position of the farmers there. The Department acted very injudiciously in connection with the making of the patrol path and its use to prevent soil erosion. I received a very detailed letter from the hon. the Minister during the past week. This letter once again proved the hon. the Minister’s friendship and willingness to help. I sent that letter through to our people there and told them that the Government would do its very best to assist them in this respect. I want here to express my thanks to the officials in Pretoria and those in Cape Town for their assistance. I want to record my appreciation to them in this regard this evening and also pay homage to our farmers there, who are making a living under extremely difficult circumstances. Nevertheless they have always retained their inborn nobility and have remained true farmers in the finest sense of the word. Because it is costing us millions to combat foot-and-mouth disease and to prevent it, and because we know that this disease is brought into our country chiefly from Bechuanaland, which is infected, I would like to know what will be the future share of those people in co-operating with us in order to prevent the spread of that disease as far as possible. As the position is, perhaps as a result of poor control on the other side, we have to spend millions an locking the stable door here although the horse has been stolen there.

I also want to advocate better co-ordination between the Department of Lands and the Department of Agricultural Technical Services. I myself have had experience of this recently in regard to the Sterk River Settlement, where some farmers have had to farm on uneconomic units. Then the Department of Agricultural Technical Services came to light with soil surveys, after which there was a certain amount of reshuffling and expansion, which was greatly to the advantage of the farmers there. This was as a result of closer co-operation between the Department of Lands and the Department of Agricultural Technical Services. ī am very pleased about this, particularly as far as the results that have been achieved are concerned. This has resulted in the fact that where in the past a settler was something of a guinea pig, he can now become a scientific farmer right from the start.

We want a rural population like the rural population we had in earlier years. Our platteland must have young fathers and mothers with large families and everything that this brings with it. Here the hon. the Minister can help us to a very large extent. In order to bring this about we must not ask what it is going to cost. We find that our old people are on the farms while our young people move to the cities. What is happening now is that our farm schools, with their culture-bearing functions, farm life full of young children and young people, the truly rural entertainments, the large rural congregations and so forth, are disappearing. What the Department of Agricultural Technical Services is able to do by means of soil surveys and guidance in order to lighten the effects of pests and droughts will greatly assist in restoring our old rural life. In regions where the father and the mother have retired to the town and the children have taken over the farm we have a vibrant rural life with large communities full of youthful culture and with a mighty potential for education, for sound agriculture and sound entertainment. To restore this position in our country is also, I think, one of the functions of the Department of Agricultural Technical Services. This ought to become a priority project with a view to stabilizing the income of the farmer in such a way that when he has a setback he can remain on his farm instead of going to the town.

In this connection I would like to know whether it is not possible for the Department of Agricultural Technical Services to work out and file far-sighted emergency projects. These projects will be of particular value in areas with a high potential for setbacks as a result of drought, insect pests, stock diseases, floods and so forth. In times of emergency these plans can then be taken from the files without interfering with the provision that has been made for other larger and smaller projects. I think that if we do this we will be able to create a position where in times of emergency the farmers will be able to have an income from wages—I repeat, an income from wages—rather than from subsidies and loans.

The hon. member for Gardens (Mr. Connan) referred at the start of his speech to certain peach trees which were apparently wrongly cultivated. I have respect for the hon. member’s seniority in this House but I cannot ignore the fact that he did not give us sufficient details in this connection. For example, he neglected to tell us for which year the peach trees were planted and also whether the farmers consulted the research station before they planted the trees. I mention the research station because the hon. member also referred to it and said that the guidance given by the authorities in this connection was not adequate. Even after the hon. the Minister gave an explanation in connection with the matter, the hon. member continued to maintain that we did not have sufficient trained people to assist us. He referred to the thousands of tons of soil that are washed away to the sea as a result of erosion. I have heard this fact mentioned since I became interested in agriculture. At that time the figure was I think about 420,000 tons. Now, it has been reduced to 400,000 tons. In any case, that is a one-sided statement to make. I would have appreciated it if the hon. member had also given us the other side of the question. He should also have mentioned the fact that the Division of Soil Conservation has done a great deal over the past 17 years. With the exception of 1 per cent, the entire surface area occupied by Whites has been proclaimed as soil conservation areas. The hon. member neglected to refer to this fact. A gigantic surface area is involved. Indeed, 148,139 properties are concerned covering a surface of 108,723,719 morgen. The number of owners involved is 101,686. I would say that this was an achievement. I say this particularly in the light of the complaint of the hon. member for Gardens that there is apparently a shortage of officials. Let us imagine that there is a shortage of officials. We have even more reason to say then that the Division of Soil Conservation has gained a remarkable achievement. If we consider that 25,889 farm plans have been completed, then this achievement is even greater. We must admit that great things have been done for the people of South Africa. As a right-thinking person I think that the hon. member for Gardens will agree with me on this point. When he said that there was an insufficient number of officials he implied to my way of thinking that the Department had not appreciated the problem and was accordingly sitting with folded arms without doing anything about it. But I deny that statement. The Department has gone out of its way to get people to do this work. You know, Mr. Chairman, that the hon. the Minister recently increased salary scales in order to attract more people. He also made bursaries available. He made loans available, but more specifically bursaries in co-operation with private bodies, the control boards and agricultural institutions. We find all this in the report. Normally I would not quote this but I want to make this quotation for the sake of the record so that the public outside will know what the position is. It may be boring for hon. members to listen to but I want to read it as it appears here under the heading “Bursaries” in the report of the Secretary for Agricultural Technical Services for 1961-2. It reads as follows—

This proves undeniably that the Department goes out of its way to obtain the necessary people. That is why one should not harp on the fact to such an extent and say that there are too few of these officers, particularly since the hon. the Minister has already told us what the actual position is, because this then implies an accusation. Apart from the work that is being done by the Department, the hon. member for Gardens had another complaint— that this knowledge is not conveyed to the farmers. One must not expect too much. We are living in an enlightened age. We have the agricultural news that is made available practically every week by the Department of Agricultural Technical Services; there are short courses; there are research stations in almost every area that can be visited and we still have the farmers’ days that are arranged where this knowledge can be conveyed to the farmers, apart from all the other methods that the Department used to assist people to obtain this knowledge and to keep them informed through the Division of Agricultural Guidance.

In the limited time at my disposal I want to say a few brief words in connection with the whole matter. When we think of the times in which we are living, we ask ourselves this question: How can one determine the success of a Department of Agricultural Technical Services? As far as I am concerned, the success of any Department of Agriculture is determined by the approach of that Department to science, its attitude towards science. When we think of the pests, the plagues and the problems of today we realize that we cannot divorce modern agriculture from science. In answering that question I must again compliment the Department of Agricultural Technical Services. These things that we are discussing this evening flow from the results that are obtained from scientific research. A department which builds on a scientific basis must eventually be successful. When we think of the fact that the Department is engaged upon thousands of agricultural research projects year after year we realize what a tremendous amount of work is being done by a small number of officials. At the moment they are dealing with 1,506 research projects. Many of these projects are completed from year to year but hundreds more are added. [Time limit.]

I want to say a few words in connection with research in regard to the promotion of the consumption of maize and maize products. This problem must be seen against a particular background—the fact that the Department of Agricultural Technical Services is busy with an imaginative programme of research in connection with the cultivation of hybridized maize which is directly responsible for our increase in production. In large parts of our country, particularly in the so-called maize triangle, the fact is being accepted more and more that no other crop can profitably replace maize as a cash crop. These two factors together with other factors result in our maize production increasing year after year. Under these circumstances I want to make an appeal to the hon. the Minister to establish a positive research programme on a far larger scale to encourage the promotion of the consumption of maize nad maize products. I take it that I am in good company because a leading scientist like Dr. Rosseau, the Managing Director of Sasol, had the following to say a short while ago [Translation]—

I am aware of the fact that to a large extent we also rely upon research being done in America. But I want to suggest that because of our different population patterns and other circumstances it is most necessary for us to undertake positive and independent research in our country. We have had important breakthroughs in the past. I refer to the ready-cooked mealie meal of the University of Stellenbosch; we have the fruit flakes of the National Food Research Institute, flakes which are a mixture of mealie meal and various types of fruit. We also have the important break-through of a good type of bread with a 25 per cent maize flour mixture. But I want to suggest that a great deal more can be done.

The first question that arises to my mind is whether in the first instance adequate funds are available for this purpose. If we consider that a very important research body like the National Food Research Institute has only R25,000 at its disposal per annum then I feel that far more money and energy can be made available for this purpose. In my opinion there are many spheres in which research can be continued in this connection. I think particularly of supplementing the maize product by means of various nutrients; I think also of the use of green mealies in larger quantities in order to increase the daily protein intake.

An important question to my mind, to which I would like the hon. the Minister to reply, is whether there is sufficient co-ordination in this connection. The Maize Board is an independent body which has the power to undertake research projects and allocate these projects to the universities. The C.S.I.R. also undertakes such projects but it takes the long way round, via its own Minister, the Minister of Economic Affairs, in order to receive instructions in this connection. The National Food Research Institute also undertakes such projects. To my mind the question is whether we should not have more co-ordination in this connection.

In conclusion I want to say that I realize that one cannot consume a surplus of millions of bags of maize through the medium of a factory which can process 500,000 or even 1,000,000 bags of maize. But the more such factories we have and the greater our breakthrough in this sphere and the more experience we gain and the more we can provide our own people with employment the swifter we will progress with this great task of solving this particular problem.

Mr. Chairman, I want to associate myself wholeheartedly with the speech of the hon. member for Kroonstad (Mr. A. Schlebusch) who has just sat down. I do not think that this debate would come into its own if we did not discuss that extremely important and basic industry, the maize industry in our country. We must see what can be done at this stage to encourage the consumption of maize. I say that I associate myself wholeheartedly with what he said, but I also want to ask the hon. the Minister to have a thorough investigation made in order to ascertain what methods we can use in the country to transform our maize into good meat as is done in all other parts of the world. We know what the position in America is. The farmer receives twice and three times as much for the maize that he keeps on his farm as he does for the maize that he markets and they receive a good price for maize overseas.

I do not want to raise the same points that were raised by the hon. member but I think that I must just add that we would be neglecting our duty if we did not do research to see whether we cannot use our maize in such a way as to enrich all branches of our farming. I leave the matter at that.

I want to raise a few other points. Besides the establishment of a sound maize industry in South Africa, the most important point to my mind is to have thorough research done in connection with grazing so that we can use our grazing in the best way. I am not unmindful of the work that is already being done or has already been done but I simply cannot say that we are doing everything that can be done or ought to be done. I had the privilege recently of seeing certain food experiments at the Rand Easter Show made by a private company in the country and I was again gripped by my old fear that we have as yet not even scratched the surface of the possibilities in this regard. If we can only ascertain what trace elements are missing in our grazing lands we will discover why our animals are not marketed in the condition in which they ought to be marketed. We have had the impression for many years in the grazing areas of the North-West Cape—I think that the position is about the same in the cattle areas of the Transvaal —that when we feed bone meal to our animals we have done everything possible to supplement the natural food of these animals and to enable them to make the best use of that food. But I have changed my mind. I have seen experiments that have been made with a preparation known as Rumivite. I saw these experiments at the Rand Show and I have pamphlets here which deal with it. It is an eye-opener to the farmer, Mr. Chairman, to know that by adding that trace element to the poorest dry grass area a calf can be taken away from its mother at a very early stage and will eventually reach a condition which it cannot reach even on the best grazing. Mr. Chairman, we must do research and ascertain what the actual shortcomings are in our grazing. We have discovered now that it is not only bone meal that we need. It is more than that. We also know that certain other trace elements can be dangerous if they are used in the wrong way. I want to make an earnest appeal to the hon. the Minister, if he can lay his hands on the money, not to spare any expense in working in that direction, because the question of whether our stock farming is going to be a paying proposition in the future will be decided by our making the best use of our grazing in a way that is justified by the present price of land.

I want to mention another matter and this is one that I have mentioned previously. I know that the hon. the Minister and his Department know that I am going to discuss bush encroachment. Bush encroachment is, to my mind, a very serious matter. The bush is not static; its threat is not static and the longer we delay taking action against this evil the more money it will cost South Africa to reclaim those parts of our country that are being overgrown, and this will be an extremely expensive business. I have here a letter that I have received recently from the Department of Agricultural Technical Services in connection with experiments that were made. I want to thank them for the work that they have done. But it disturbs one to know from experiments made by the Department that in one instance it cost R 14.40 to treat and clear one morgen of land and that land was only lightly affected. In another experiment it cost R 16.70 to clear one morgen of land that was lightly affected by hook-thorn. I mention hook-thorn specifically because it is one of the most common types of bush that is encroaching in the north-west from South West Africa, and it is encroaching upon all our cattle areas along the Transvaal border. Bush encroachment has already assumed vast proportions in certain parts of our country. I want to thank the hon. the Minister and his Department very sincerely, but I want to ask them in all humility once again not to underestimate that threat. They must not allow it to increase; they must not waste time so that instead of its costing us R16 per morgen it will cost us R32 per morgen to clear that land. Not only that, but we may have to write off that land and we cannot afford to do so.

I wish to refer to various items of expenditure which appear under the headings F to N on page 137 of the Estimates. Under these research programmes which fall under the purview of the Minister are various projects dealing with the control or eradication of various pests and research into matters incidental thereto. I should like to ask the hon. the Minister what amount has been allocated to the protection of humans, and, to a lesser extent, to the protection of insects and bird-life from possible ill-effects arising from these pesticides. I feel that the time has arrived when the Minister should take a serious interest in the possible residual and side-effects of insecticides and pesticides which are used. From a departmental point of view I appreciate that control does exist in regard to formulation, in regard to registration and also as far as marketing is concerned, although it could be argued that the distribution of certain pesticides and insecticides is in the hands of people who are not sufficiently trained or not scientifically aware of the potential danger of the articles which they handle.

In reply to a question concerning the sale of poisonous insecticides it was indicated to me that administrative arrangements had been made with the Department of Agricultural Technical Services and with the Department of Justice in order to ensure that the number of suppliers was limited to a minimum. Questions addressed in order to ascertain what steps were taken to form a clear statistical picture of the misfortunes and fatal results which arose from the use of insecticides in South Africa, as far as humans were concerned, indicated that no accurate figures for this particular heading were available. The Minister of Health indicated that it was not possible to supply these figures separately, because, in terms of World Health Organization standards, they were combined with other figures. But in a reply which he gave to the question he admitted that the biggest “human” killers among insecticides were the organic phospherous insecticide preparations, parathion and thiophos. It seems wrong that we should not have means whereby to establish accurate figures in connection with fatalities involving such dangerous preparations. It seems that other countries have taken a serious view of this particular aspect and figures are available. I believe these figures serve to indicate that it is necessary to have such research into such statistical information. In California, for example, there are 200 cases of accidental deaths due to parathion annually; in India, in 1958, there were 100 cases; and in Syria there were 67; Japan averages 336 deaths per annum through parathion insecticide. Only this week there was an article in the Press which indicated that a similar insecticide, malathion, had been responsible in South Africa for further fatalities. I believe that this is a matter which is assuming increasing proportions and deserves serious attention. I should like to ask the Minister if he could tell us what steps are being taken to conduct research into the extent of and the affects of contamination.

The attitude of the Minister to this particular aspect, Sir, seems to be a negative one. In reply to a question which I addressed to him “whether his Department has made any investigations to assess the possible contamination of water supplies by insecticides used on a large scale for combating insect pests in crops, and, if so, what investigation and with what results”, the answer was a plain, unequivocal “No”. No investigations were being made and apparently no importance is attached to this potential danger.

I believe that other countries are beginning to appreciate the danger of the residual effect of many of these potent insecticides and they realize that the increasing distribution of these insecticides aggravates the dangers which exist at present. In Great Britain there have been cases recorded where bird life has been seriously affected in certain areas due to spraying of insecticides and pesticides which were intended to destroy what was regarded as ordinary garden pests. In the U.S.A. it has been recorded that fish have been destroyed in very large quantities as result of insecticides which have been sprayed over a large area at points quite remote from the inland seas and lakes where these fish normally have their haunts and that due to the rain washing the insecticides into the rivers which ultimately landed in the lakes the fish have been exposed to a great concentration of insecticide with fatal results to many of the fish in the lakes.

There is another aspect which seems to be causing concern in America and that is the seepage underground of water impregnated with insecticides from areas sometimes fairly remote from the areas in which the insecticides were originally used. I think this threat is increasing due to the increase in the spraying of insecticides. It is interesting to note that in the period 1947 to 1960 in the United States the over-all production of insecticides has increased fivefold. Some of the insecticides are unstable, so that their period of activity is relatively short and their residual dangers are much less, but that does not apply to all of them. Some of the stable insecticides may be effective for a long time and their residual action, I believe, can be detrimental to the human race. It is interesting to note that in so far as the World Health Organization bulletin is concerned reference is made to a fall in the blood cholinesterase, and they say the following—

In our country I am led to believe we use fair quantities of arsenic in the treatment of locusts. I should like to refer the Minister to a book called “Silent Spring”, written by Rachel Carlson, in which she says the following about arsenic—

It is a frightening thought, Sir. The same authoress refers to aldrin and she says a quantity the size of an asprin tablet is sufficient to kill more than 400 quail. Then we have D.D.T., which has become so prominent in our households all over South Africa. It is a fairly long-acting and stable insecticide; it is absorbed and stored in the liver of fish and warm-blooded animals and humans. The concentration in the liver can reach alarming proportions with most unfortunate results in certain circumstances. This concentration which ultimately occurs in the liver far exceeds the concentration which is used in the initial stages to spray the areas which have to be treated. In the report of the Department of Health reference is made to the treatment of typhus and I quote—

The report continues—

All this adds up to a threat, Sir. This threat has been pointed out by Professor Steyn, of the Pretoria University. He is concerned about the danger of the indiscriminate use of insecticides, and he says that poisoning may increase unless steps are taken to restrict their sale and to assure that they are handled only by people competent to do so. [Time limit.]

In previous years and more specifically during this Session I have pleaded the case of some thousands of Coloureds in the Transkei who will have to leave that territory. From my own knowledge of the circumstances of those people I can at this stage say that I am sure that a large number of them can be resettled in agriculture outside of the Transkei. I realize that as soon as one talks of resettlement of these people as farmers in agriculture this falls under another Vote. But there is another branch of agriculture which is just as important and that is the question of farm labour. I feel that the hon. the Minister and his Department can make a positive contribution towards facilitating the task of the Government of removing those people from the Transkei and settling them elsewhere in the Republic. This can be done if the Minister’s Department will assist the farmers by way of subsidies for houses to accommodate the people from that territory on farms and to settle them there. It is obvious that every effort must be made to make those people feel that they are going to a better home to live under better conditions. In other words, we must try rather to draw those people from the Transkei than to drive them out or to allow them to be driven out by certain circumstances.

A characteristic of the farm labouring class of our Coloured people is that they are always striving to preserve the family, the domestic unit. There are members in this House who have had practical experience of this and can confirm what I say. When one remonstrates with farmers for giving liquor to their farm labourers, they often say that if they do not do so, they will not be able to find farm labourers, but there are hon. members in this House who can confirm that what I say here is the truth—that the primary factor influencing the Coloured labourer in seeking work on the farm is the house in which he is going to live. I know that the hon. member for Paarl (Mr. W. C. Malan) does not supply his Coloured farm labourers with liquor. They are properly housed and he has more labourers than he needs. The hon. member for Rondebosch (Sir De Villiers Graaff) has the same experience. He can obtain more labour than he needs and he does not supply his farm labourers with liquor. I mention this because it is a characteristic of the Coloured farm labouring class that the preservation of his family unit is very important to him.

At 10.25 p.m. the Chairman stated that, in accordance with Standing Order No. 26 (1), he would report progress and ask leave to sit again.