U.S. MARKET FOR SMALL SEEDS

Press, Volume LXXXIX, Issue 27149, 19 September 1953, Page 6

U.S. MARKET FOR SMALL SEEDS

OPPORTUNITY FOR DOLLAR EARNING VIEWS OF MR GEORGE STEVENSON (New Zealand* Press Association) INVERCARGILL, September 18. New Zealand is missing a wonderful opportunity to earn dollars by not developing a market for small seeds in the United States, in the opinion of Mr George Stevenson, of Dacre. He said today that there would be great prospects for New Zealand seeds if the Government went the right way about breaking into the American market.

One of the two New Zealand delegates to the recent world conference of the International Federation of Agricultural Producers in Rome, Mr Stevenson spent a month in the United States on his way home. “We’ll never get. far with the seed trade in the United States until we can establish some permanent liaison with the American seed users,” he said. “But if it could be developed we would get so much business that we would be hard put to it to produce enough seeds.” Mr Stevenson said he thought trade could be established in English grasses, clover ryegrass, cocksfoot, Timothy, and so on, and in lawn grasses such as chewings fescue and brown top. That trade, if developed properly, could be worth millions of dollars a year to N.ew Zealand. Mr Stevenson said that to break into the market the Government would have to give New Zealand seeds wide publicity in the United States and provide adequate selling facilities through special agents. It would be essential that interested farmers could obtain the seeds with a minimum of trouble.. An important point was that American farmers would have to be educated so that they would accept New Zealand seeds in preference to their own, Mr Stevenson said. The quality of the certified New Zealand seeds would have to be emphasised because they would have to compete with the inferior but cheaper American seeds. “New Zealand has a foothold in the American market, but its sales will be limited until enterprise is used and the trade expanded,” Mr Stevenson said.