FREEZING WORKS COSTS

Press, Volume LXXII, Issue 21908, 8 October 1936, Page 16

FREEZING WORKS COSTS

TO THE EDITOR OF THE PRESS. Sir, —The remarks made by "Sheep Farmer” in “The Press” to-day as regards the fat stock buyers for the freezing companies are so incorrect and misleading that I must try to enlighten him. In the first place the season is not, as stated by him, five months. The works here in Canterbury open at the beginning of December and close at the end of June, and during November the buyer is fully occupied making arrangements with the farmer for the coming season. The remaining five months the buyer has to keep in contact with the farmers, and assist some of them in Various ways, if he is to be successful and build up his business; in fact, his success will depend on his spade work during those five months. During most of the season, especially the busy part of the year, the buyer has to be awa v from home at daylight, and it is generally late at night before he is home, when his work is nowhere near finished. He then has to communicate with the works as regards his space, order trucks, arrange with his drovers, dispatch his booking notes, and arrange with the farmers about drafting, as well as work out killing sheets. He will in 100 cases be lucky if he has finished by 10 p.m., and in many cases after this, with his alarm clock set for 5 am, he will be rung up by some farmer just back from a party, saying that he has heard a rumour that lamb is going to drop in price, and asking if the buyer can get his lambs away. Also, the works have to be kept going on Mondays, which means that he has to work all day on most Saturdaysl and many Sundays. A number of farmers will not stop work on the farm during, the week to draft, end if you do not draft on Sunday someone else will, and you will lose the business. In rm r own case, much as I object to doing so, I had to work on seven consecutive Sundays last year. There is only one company in Canterbury that takes stock at schedule price only, and in my own case more than 75 per cent, are bought by me at per head, so that I am a buyer, and not merely a drafter, as your correspondent would lead one to believe. The overlapping in droving is caused entirely by the farmer, who in many cases does not consider the buyer, and wants his lambs away when he is ready. The drafting of lambs is an expert work, and one that many farmers could not do, so that when the Government brings in the guaranteed price the fanner will still have the drafter to do his drafting, order his trucks,, arrange his space and his droving, but he will not have the buyer. On the other hand we shall only have to work reasonable hours, and not have the responsibility of spending thousands of pounds in the yeair of the companies’ money, for which I can assure “Farmer” we are not overpaid. In conclusion, I would Inform “Farmer” that as I have to supply my own car and pa Tr my own running expenses, it is my business, and not his. as to how I use my car in the off-season, and that it is not the buyers that put the freezing costs where they *are. but partly the farmer, who wants that little bit" more than his neighbour, and over schedule. —Yours, etc.. * BUYER. October 7, 1936.