MEAT EXPORTS TO U.S.

Press, Volume LXXXIV, Issue 25579, 21 August 1948, Page 8

MEAT EXPORTS TO U.S.

SCHEME TO ACQUIRE MORE DOLLARS “ GROWING DEMAND FOR GOOD LAMB” The advantages New Zealand would receive by exporting meat to the United States were discussed yesterday by Mr E. T. Beaven, president of the Canterbury Chamber of Commerce, who returned this week from a visit to Britain and America. Prices had risen drastically in the United States, he said, and less than a fortnight ago the protests by the women of five States culminated in a “cease-to-buy meat movement.” * Butter now cost practically a dollar a pound, lamb was a similar price, and steak, ‘‘almost the national dish of the country,” had risen to more than a dollar a pound. ‘‘l was interested to find a growing demand for, and a very general appreciation of good lanro,” Mr Beaven said. “This was stimulated by the stay in New Zealand of so many American troops, and I am certain that if production could be increased, the tools of trade and encouragement given to iaimers, our meat exports could be increased. Some of the increase should be diverted to the United States to provide dollars for the purchase of some of the amazing labour-saving machinery I saw there.” Describing one machine, Mr Beaven said it cut into short lengths surplus fodder for silage at the rate of 30 tons an hour, and was operated by only one man. Surely that was a unit of interest, he added. The silage had been pitted for five and up to seven years, and provided the United States farmer with a reserve against droughts and floods. “In discussions with various people, including economists and politicians, it appeared that a proposition to export some of the additional production, which could only be obtained by the introduction of a quantity of the most modern American and British machinery. would be welcome. The prices should be diverted to the repayment of the plant, and the balance used to increase the supply of food for Brit-

More food for Britain must remain New Zealand’s main object, Mr Beaven said. The average New Zealand traveller in Britain found that he lost weight, which indicated that the British diet was insufficient.