MILK PRODUCTS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVII, Issue 237, 6 October 1936, Page 14

MILK PRODUCTS.

POSITION AT HOME. FARMERS DISSATISFIED. OVERSEAS COMPETITION. LOXDOX, September 12. There is widespread dissatisfaction with the working of the English milk marketing scheme, and there are indications that the home farmers will be loud in a demand for a. levy oil all dairy imports to help tlieni out of their present difficulties. Somerset farmers have pointed out that while Dominion butter and cheese prices were 40 per cent up on those of last year, the prices fixed by the English Milk Board for manufacturing milk during the 1930-37 season were no better than those of twelve months ago. Mr. Sidney Wear, chairman of the Somerset■ Milk committee, said that he had vainly suggested to the board that no milk should be sold to manufacturers under 6d a gallon, as compared with the actual contract price of about 3}d a gallon. Meanwhile Xew Zealand and Australia were sending over increased quantities of butter and cheese at guaranteed prices, irrespective of what they made in England. ,

The "Morning Post's" agricultural correspondent said that as long as a flood of foreign and Dominion imports overwhelmed the Home market, it was difficult to see how any Milk Products Board could help the farmer out of his difficulties. If the scheme were accompanied by a Government undertaking that an ear-marked tariff would be employed to imported milk products, so that the Home producer could produce at a reasonable profit, the scheme might have a good deal to commend it. An ear-marked tariff on all imported milk products could be used to subsidise liquid milk for the benefit of producers and the most important class of the consumers, the women and children. Health experts and consumers' representatives on the other hand were of the opinion that there would be little point in subsidising liquid ' milk consumption by taxing butter and cheese. Lord Bledisloe, in a broadcast, said that if the consumption of milk were raised to the level of that in the United States, Sweden and Switzerland, there there would be no glut of milk or milk products on the Home markets, even if the dairy farmers produced their maximum, and the present exportable surplus of butter and cheese from Xew Zealand entered without any restriction. Lord Bledisloe said that what was wanted was a long-range policy which would save the Home farmer and be fair at the same time to the Dominions. Steps were being taken to urge upon the Home people the desirability of milk product foods, which it was considered were within reach of the majority of the population.