MARKETING OF HONEY

Press, Volume LXXIX, Issue 24112, 23 November 1943, Page 6

MARKETING OF HONEY

CANTERBURY PRODUCERS OPPOSE REGULATIONS

THREAT TO USE RESERVE ALLEGED

“Members of the Canterbury branch of the National Beekeepers’ Association are still determined to oppose the honey marketing regulations to the limit of their powers.” said Mr W. B. Bray, president of the Canterbury branch, when commenting on a resolution carried in favour of the retention of the existing honey marketing regulations by the South Auckland branch at a recent meeting at Hamilton. The regulations will expire on November 30.

Mr Bray said that Mr A. H. Honeyfield, manager of the Auckland branch of the Internal Marketing Department, had addressed this meeting, and had threatened that the department would use the sum of £32,015 held in reserve to keep the department running in the event of no supplies coming forward on a voluntary basis. Mr Bray said that this reserve -represented levies collected from independent honey packers, and it had originally been intended for advertising expenses and for the development of the honey market.

He said that there was a great deal of opposition to such a proposal and to the continuance of the market regulations, but because beekeeping was a scattered industry it was difficult for the opposition to make itself manifest. Although the regulations had been brought in as a war measure, Mr Honeyfleld had not mentioned this, said Mr Bray, but had merely emphasised the importance of keeping the department running. And it was the general opinion of the beekeepers in Canterbury, he added, that the war had been made the excuse for bringing in a policy of control which the department had had in mind before the war began.

The development ot the industry would be retarded under the marketing regulations, because the price paid out on the darker honeys would prevent the expansion of the industry in those areas which were the only ones remaining undeveloped, he said. Already there had been a tendency for producers to move their bees into areas giving white honey. This had caused overcrowding, with the result that the older-established beekeepers were now agitating for legislation licensing the areas in which bees could be kept.