DAIRY INDUSTRY

Bay of Plenty Times, Volume LXVII, Issue 12821, 16 August 1939, Page 7

DAIRY INDUSTRY

heavy drop at wairoa * At the annual meeting of the Wairoa Co-operative Dairy Company the chairman of directors, Mr A. T. Carroll, reported a poor season from the company’s point of view. The output for the season, 560 tons,"showed a drop of 25.6 per cent. Anothei disquieting feature was the number of cases where herds were reduced on account of farmers being unable to compete on the labour market with relatively more attractive occupations. The average season pay-out , for 1937-3-S was 14.6296 d per pound. This season the payment to shareholders was estimated to be 15.3 77 7d per pound. In 1930, continued • the report,

when exchange was in the company’s favour by 10 per cent., a loan of £ 7500 was raised in London to assist dairy farmers with their finances, the company was' making an apparent profit after payment of expenses of £721 17s 6d. The exchange later moved up to 25 per Cent, with the result that the company now had to find a further £ 2025 Is 6d in order to pay off the loan of £ 7500 plus interest capitalised. The directors were fortunate in being able to make this transfer of funds just a day or two previous to the Government’s exchange control legislation coming into force early in December. After a deduction of the original apparent profit of £721 17s 6d there was a net loss of £ 1303 14s.

In view of the large deficit in the Government’s dairy industry account, it would appear that the guaranteed price would not have an upward tendency so it was thought wise to write off the whole amount out of the year’s workings rather than make deductions from future years, when perhaps suppliers would be less in a position to withstand them.