Wheat Committee Sales Amount To Millions

Press, Volume XCVI, Issue 28433, 13 November 1957, Page 9

Wheat Committee Sales Amount To Millions

The Wheat Committee ig a big business. In the 1956-57 period its sales of wheat amounted to £7,654,734 and it disposed of flour, bran and pollard to a value of £4,390,441. The quantity of involved was 11,933,970 bushels and the flour sold totalled 185,840 tons. The committee, which was established in 1936, operates under Board of Trade Wheat and Flour Regulations, 1944. The Minister of Industries aqd Commerce is chairman of the committee, whose other members comprise representatives of the wheat growing, flour milling, baking and poultrykeeping industries, all of whom are appointed by the Minister, at whose pleasure they hold office. The present members of the committee are: the Minister of Industries and Commerce, Mr E. H. Halstead, who is chairman, Mr P. B. Marshall (deputy chairman), Sir Walter Mulholland, and Messrs J. B. Bayley and G. A. Nutt (wheat growers), T. R. Turnbull and H. Worrall (flour millers), G. R. Eurrowes and M. F. Findlay (bakers), A. H. Button (poultrykeepers) and Mr R. McPherson, a former general manager of the committee.

The committee has three main functions. It is the marketing authority for all f.a.q. wheat, apart from a few exceptions such as certified seed wheat, which it does not handle, and growers may sell, otherwise than through the committee, up to 100 bushels in any year.- The committee also acts for the Government in the importation and distribution of imported wheat both for milling and feed purposes. In the last yearly period it imported 10,142,353 bushels from Australia. It is also agent for flour millers in that it markets their flour, bran and pollard.

Marketing Wheat

In marketing f.a.q. New Zealand wheat the committee utilises the services of licensed brokers (prominent grain merchants) who at its direction channel the commodity from farms to mills and merchants and attend to the collection of money from buyers and the payment of growers. In the case of imported wheat the committee purchases and arranges shipment and distribution to buyers—the millers and grain merchants c.i.f. New Zealand port of discharge. In broad terms the marketing policy of the committee is to provide a guaranteed market for the New Zealand wheat grower and to import sufficient wheat each year to cover any quantitative deficiency in requirements after taking New Zealand production into account. On the present scale of consumption New Zealand’s overall wheat requirements are in the order of 13.2 m. bushels annually. The policy in New Zealand is to subsidise wheat and flour to the various users, the committee being responsible for the administration of the subsidy. A system of

fixed prices operates starting with the New Zealand growers’ price through to the committee’s “charge out” prices for New Zealand and imported wheat, and flour, bran and pollard. The committee does not in itself fix the prices—this being the function of the Government and the Price Tribunal. The committee’s responsibility is to administer the prices at the point where it actually buys and sells.