PROSPERITY GUARDED

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28701, 26 September 1958, Page 7 (Supplement)

PROSPERITY GUARDED

The New Zealand Meat and Wool Board’s Economic Service believes that the future prosperity of New Zealand is bound up with the pastoral industry—that is, with our production of meat and wool. The sheep industry is the most important industry in New Zealand, covering as it does the production of our wool, nearly all our meat, and other animal by-products worth in themselves several million pounds. By way of illustrating this statement, the value of our meat and wool exports as a percentage of total exports over the last three years has averaged 61 per cent

It is vital, therefore, in the national interest to know as much as we can about the economics of this -huge industry, so that we may develop and utilise the industry’s strength on the one hand and appreciate and guard against its weaknesses on the other.

In order to carry out this task of research into the economic aspects of the sheep industry, the New Zealand Meat Producers’ Board and the New Zealand Wool Board set up in 1950 the nucleus of our present Economic Service. Over the last eight years we have carried out a close study of the economics of the sheep industry from the accumulated data placed at our disposal by some 380 farmers covered in a continuing sample survey. Many reports concerning the sheep industry have been published—some for the boards’ confidential use, others for public circulation. The sample farms are selected on a random basis and comprise about 50 high country properties, 130 hill country places, and about 200 fattening farms. The records collected year by year from these farms have enabled us to determine the production of meat and wool per acre and to present a reasonable picture of the economic situation of the three main types of sheep farms. , The detailed estimates of iamb, mutton and beef production per acre on our fattening farms and the wool production per acre 1 on all types of sheep farm have provided background information, tn conjunction with expenditure per acre, which can be used by the boards when the level of the floor prices each year for meat and wool is being considered.