STABILISATION IN PIG INDUSTRY

Press, Volume LXXIX, Issue 23913, 3 April 1943, Page 4

STABILISATION IN PIG INDUSTRY

REGULATIONS FOR NORTH ISLAND

POWER GIVEN TO EXPORT, MARKETING DIVISION (P.A.) WELLINGTON, April 2. During the last 12 months operations in the pig industry, and particularly those associated with the purchase of both porkers and baconers in the saleyards. have shown increasing instability, and it has become necessary to introduce a procedure to ensure that both the price paid to the producer for pigs and the price to consumers for pig meats should be stabilised within the framework of the Stabilisation Emergency Regulations. The Minister of Marketing (the Hon. J. G. Barclay) and his departmental officers have had a number of conferences with all sections of the industry, and as a result of these conferences a final procedure has been determined which, it is considered, can be operated successfully with a minimum of disturbance of existing trade channels. This procedure is embodied in the Pig Marketing Emergency Regulations, 1943, gazetted to-night, which apply only in the North Island. The regulations provide that producers can in future sell porkers and baconers either by auction or by private treaty, but if by the latter it must be on a basis of actual dressed weights after killing. The regulations define the maximum prices payable for porkers and baconers. These prices have been determined as approximating as closely as possible to average prices received by the producers in the North Island for the year ended December 15, 1942. These prices are, in effect, guaranteed to the producer by the Export Marketing Division’s purchase of fresh or frozen pig meats at prices directly related to the fixed schedule prices payable to producers for livestock. The regulations require that records shall be kept of all sales and purchases by auctioneering companies, meat operators, freezing works, and abattoirs. Power is also given to the Export Division of the Marketing Department to purchase at defined prices all or any porker or baconer pigs slaughtered for human consumption, with the exception of pigs killed at rural abattoirs. It is impossible on the estimated killing of pigs this year to meet fully the requirements of the local market and American contracts for bacon pork placed with manufacturers in New Zealand. It is therefore considered essential that some central organisation should have the necessary authority to ensure that the available supply is rationed both to the local market and for American requirements on whatever basis- the Government determines. It is for this reason that the Export Marketing Division is empowered to purchase pig meats.

SALE OF PIGS IN OPEN MARKET

BURNSIDE REQUEST (P.S.S.) DUNEDIN, April 2. A unanimous decision to request the Government to permit them to continue selling pigs in the open market at Burnside was reached this afternoon at a well-attended meeting of pig producers and fatteners from various districts in Otago. The consensus of opinion among those present was that, in view of the high cost of transport, farmers and small producers at a distance from recognised killing works should, as a war measure, be allowed to kill and market their pigs on the same basis as before the present marketing regulations came into force. It was agreed that the Government should be approached on this matter also. It was decided to form an association of pig growers and fatteners in Otago.