LOCAL BUTTER SALES

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LXIII, Issue 11786, 2 August 1935, Page 3

LOCAL BUTTER SALES

STABILISATION SCHEME. Interviewed by a “Dominion” representative regarding the local marketing of butter, the secretary of the Kia Ora Dairy Co., Mr J. H. Sunderland, who is the official delegate for Poverty Bay, East Coast and Wairoa to the dairy conference to be held in Wellington on September 19, said that the question of the formation of a stabilisation scheme for the marketlng of butter on the local market was originally submitted with a view to preventing losses to the dairyfarmer by factories undercutting the price of local butter in order to prevent any competitor from showing a better return on account of the advantage that would accrue when local sales returned better prices than sales in London.

‘Unfortunately "for the , industry, we find that at the N.D.A. conference last year the delegates were led into believing that a national stabilisation scheme would provide all factories, whether they had local sales or not, with something for nothing, it was this bogey that brought about the apparent unanimity of those delegates, whereas the real scheme was to prevent price cutting,” he said. “It would be a mistake to follow the lead shown to us By our, Australian friends In their local marketing scheme. New Zealand hag not the requisite population to warrant the adoption of their scheme. "It would be very unwise to increase the price of local butter to a high point, particularly when ■it is realised that an increase of 3d per lb. on local sales will only result In l-3d per lb on the total output of New Zealand butter available for distribution, and out of this surplus, the Royal Commission recommended some portion for various schemes such as the eradication , of unfit stock, etc. It is obvious for anyone who is handling local sales to realise the effect of a rise of, say, 3d per Ibv Consumption must of necessity fall, and, this would have the'opposlte effect to that desired by the industry, as each one pound of produce not consumed locally will add further to our difficulties of sales in London. The aim of the board should be to reduce costs of distribution and to increase sales within the Dominion."