GOING TO WASTE.

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 235, 4 October 1937, Page 9

GOING TO WASTE.

FRUIT IN ISLANDS. MORE STEAMERS WANTED. EXPORT CONTROL EFFECTIVE. (From Onr Own Correspondent.) RAROTONGA, September 17. The new Resident Commissioner, Mr. S. J. Smith, has been successful in getting the full co-operation of the native planters in his plan to give the orange and banana plantations a thorough overhaul. Through lack of adequate returns and poor steamer service the natives had largely ceased to take an interest in their trees, and the exports had fallen to less than half. By holding meetings with the planters in the villages and with the assistance of the Director of Agriculture, Mr. W. T. Goodwin, and Mr. B. Baker, the citrus expert from Jamaica, the natives were induced to form into groups in each tapere; trees that had become diseased and useless were cut down, and thousands of trees were pruned, scraped and sprayed where necessary, manure was distributed, and for the first time for many years the Rarotonga plantations show care and attention such as should result in large supplies of good fruit reaching the New Zealand markets. In various districts land has been secured for nurseries, and thousands of seedlings are being grown for future budding and distribution. Banana planting on an extensive scale is to be undertaken, the natives joining together in groups to prune and plant each other's land under expert direction by the Director of Agriculture and his staff.

The first season of Government control of the export of oranges has worked smoothly, and native planters are particularly pleased with the arrangement, whereby they are paid an advance of 2/6 per case in their own villages as soon as the fruit is shipped. This enables the Department to adhere to its decision to make payment only to the grower and not to an agent. The only obstacle to a bright future for the island planter appears to be lack of steamer service in order to supply the New Zealand market with all the oranges, bananas, and tomatoes that it can take. The Cook Islands require a regular fortnightly service from the month of May until the end of October by steamers like the motor vessel Matua, properly equipped to carry fruit. This year Rarotonga lost 70 per cent of its orange crop, and 50 per cent of the

tomato crop through lack of steamer service. At the moment the islands of Atiu and Mauke could supply 10,000 cases each of oranges, and one or other of them will not have a steamer call at all, while the island that does receive a call will only be granted space to ship about 6000 cases, and that on an ordinary cargo steamer, with the chances that a large percentage of the fruit after a trip on the deck of a slow steamer to New Zealand will be unfit for sale.

To-morrow the Matua calls to take bananas from Earotonga, via Suva, Samoa, and Tonga, to New Zealand. She will not be able to take any of the thousands of cases of tomatoes going to waste, or of the oranges in the islands of Aitutaki, Atiu, and Mauke. These must await shipment, if at all, by cargo steamer later.

A visit to the plantations on any of the islands causes one to think that there is something wrong when the New Zealand public, only a comparatively short distance away, has to import fruit from other countries, while her own people here—for the Cook Islands are as much a part of New Zealand as Auckland —have thousands of cases going to waste. There is no local market, and fruit not shipped from the outer islands falls to the ground and rots.

The planters in the islands are doing all they can and the Resident Commissioner and his staff are giving expert advice and assistance. In the island of Atiu, as in Barotonga, the native planters, with the assistance of the Administration, have made roads to the distant plantations so that oranges can be brought down to the point of shipment with the minimum amount of handling. All that is required is a regular steamer service.