CONGESTED BUTTER MARKET

Evening Post, Volume CXVII, Issue 148, 25 June 1934, Page 8

CONGESTED BUTTER MARKET

Dairy farmers meeting in annual conference at New, Plymouth this week will have to consider seriously j the future of the butler market. Refer,ence is made in London cablegrams j today to the heavy stocks and great increase in imports from all sources of supply. Probably due to dry weather and fears of arepetition of last I year's droughty conditions in Great Britain the London market took an upward turn in the middle of May, and this continued until June 14, when the week closed at 79s to 80s for New Zealand finest butter. Since then the market- has fallen by 2s per cwt; and prices are back to where they were a.t this lime last year. In the present difficult circumstances of the New Zealand dairy industry a movement of Is or 2s per cwt either way in the price of-butler is a matter of the utmost importance to the dairy farmer directly and in the long run to the community as a whole, considering the high place occupied by butter in New Zealand exports. The only grain of comfort "that can be extracted from'the present low state of the butter market is that the genuine New Zealand article is becoming much more widely known and must be adversely affecting the sale of margarine, its strongly competitive substitute. The British consumer can hardly be expected to do more than he is doing by New Zealand butter. Official returns show that during the period August 1 to May 31 last delivery of New Zealand'butter from London stores was 89,411 tons, compared with 71,378 tons for the corresponding period of last year. This was of New Zealand butter only. For the five months ended May 31 last compared with the same months of 1932 the British total/imports of butter from all countries had increased from 169,470 tons to 217,879, and for this period Australia and New Zealand combined increased their contributions from 95,317 tons in 1932 to 128,568 in 1934. New Zealand butter at lOd per lb is, iio doubt, penetrating every district market in the United Kingdom and becoming more widely known, providing its identity is preserved;' and this is the, only consolatory factor in the present situation of a swamped butter market. •