FIVE PROBLEMS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXII, Issue 119, 22 May 1931, Page 3

FIVE PROBLEMS.

FARMERS' DWINDLING INCOME. WANGANUI CONFERENCE. Five main problems of the farming community were referred to by Mr. T. Currie, president of the Wanganui Farmers' Union, in his presidential address at the inter-provincial conference of tlio Wanganui, Wellington Central, Manawatu and Wairarapa provincial districts of the Farmers' Union held at Wanganui on Wednesday. These problems, he said, were low prices for produce on the London markets; the high cost of living; high production costs; taxation and rural finance. Farm expenditure, he said, was 64 per cent higher to-day than it was in prewar times. A big reduction in the costs of production to dairy farmers and to poultry farmers would bo effected next year when the price of wheat was to be reduced by 1/4 per bushel and £2 IS/ per ton was to be taken off flour. But this was much less than the world fall in wheat prices and much less also than the reduction in prices suffered by pro--1 ducers of butter, cheese and wool since 1927, when the original wheat and flour sliding scales were fixed. If costs of production were to be effected, it was only reasonable to ask that Customs duties on articles used in production and on articles which were regarded as necessaries of life should be reduced and ultimately eliminated. Big reductions in the price of fertilisers, fencing wire, wool packs and sacks must be made, as too big a percentage of the production of the average farmer was eaten up in procuring these essentials for farming. Regarding interest rates, Mr. Currie said that, If the rates were fixed at a low level, very little money was available for production purposes, and if too high, as was the case at present, the load on farmer borrowers was too heavy to bear. Supposing a farmer's annual income to be £1000, out of this about £330 is paid •as interest every year, leaving £G7O for the farmer to pay his costs of production and his costs of living. After rates and taxes, fertilisers and other materials required for carrying on farm work, articles of clothing and food had been paid for, very little was left. During the past decade both State taxation and local body taxation had grown enormously and were now proving two of the most difficult obstacles for the farming community.