MEAT AND BUTTER

Auckland Star, Volume LXXII, Issue 165, 15 July 1941, Page 9

MEAT AND BUTTER

STORAGE PROBLEM

FARMERS "IN THE DARK"

(0.C.) WELLINGTON, this day. Addressing the annual conference of the New Zealand Farmers' Union to-day, the Dominion president, Mr. W. W. Mulholland, stated that every ton of cheese that farmers failed to change over meant an increase of relatively half a ton in the quantity of butter in siore, ana this excess quantity of buttei-Q might compete with meat for storage space in the cool stores. "The Government has promised that provision will be made for new storage to accommodate the additional quantity of butter expected," he said. "So far, however, this work has not been put in hand, and time marches on. Even if this provision is made so that there is no encroachment on meat stores by butter, the 250,000 tons of storage space available for meat storage must be heavily taxed if our coming season is a normal one.

"The Government is depending largely on canning and the deboning of meat to conserve storage space sufficiently to enable the season's production to be handled. But certain categories of meat are to be excluded from store entirely. The realisation of the Government's intentions depends on the trebling or quadrupling of our canning facilities, the provision of the extra labour, buildings and plant to enable the deboning of well on towards 100,000 tons of beef and mutton to be carried out, and the provision of digester nlant of sufficient capacity to deal with nearly 100.000 tons of offal additional to that normally handled.

"Not one nail, nor one rivet, has yet been driven, or a sod turned. The Government's calculations can be realised only if the capacity to carry out the various operations can be provided. Can they? 1 am very doubtful.

"The whole question of payment for meat products still remains in the air. Apparently no policy has yet been decided by the Government. The farmer is still kept in ignorance of even knowing whether the Government will graciously accept his produce, or force him to destroy it. Certainly there are difficulties in the way of making these decisions, as there are in the way of making any decisions in war time, but Nature does not wait on procrastinating Governments, but gets on with the job, and before long the new season's produce will have to be disposed of even if the Government has still got its policy 'steadily in view.' "