MARKETING OF FRUIT

Press, Volume LXXXVI, Issue 26199, 24 August 1950, Page 3

MARKETING OF FRUIT

SUPPORT GIVEN TO BOARD

RESOLUTION BY GROWERS’ FEDERATION

(New Zealand Press Association) WELLINGTON, August 23. Confidence in the Apple and Pear Marketing Board was expressed by a resolution at the conference to-day of the New Zealand Fruitgrowers’ Federation. “Given time,” said the resolution, “the principles adopted by the board will be vastly improved upon —as by past experience we are convinced that it is the only way of ensuring the cost of production to producers.”

The conference rejected a motion that appeals be made to the Government, the Marketing Board, and growers to endeavour to make the present marketing scheme more acceptable to the industry than at present. Criticism of the board’s method of marketing apples in New Zealand, made yesterday at the conference, was replied to to-day by the chairman of the board (Mr H. Turner). Mr Turner said that the statement by the president of the federation (Mr A. B. Congdon) that the board was withholding varieties of apples until the variety currently on sale was sold was “contrary to fact.” “It is most unfortunate that the statement was made and so widely publicised.” he said. “It has an unpleasant similarity to the attack made on this board recently by the president of the New Zealand Fruit Retailers’ Federation.”

Mr Turner said that such a statement should not have come from the president of the growers’ federation. It almost smacked of disloyalty to the organisation. Growers should realise that although a wide variety of apples was available to retailers, no compulsion could be exercised on them as to what varieties they should buy. Mr Turner then quoted statistics sup£lied by the Assistant Director of Mareting (Mr K. B. Longmore) of the varieties sold at Auckland this year. Mr Congdon, replying, said that his statement had been based “on the facts as I saw them in Auckland in certain weeks m June and July.”