DELAYS IN STOCK KILLINGS

Press, Volume XCVII, Issue 28774, 20 December 1958, Page 8

DELAYS IN STOCK KILLINGS

Farmer Suggests Another Works

“The present heavy demand for killing space at Canterbury freezing works is an almost annual occurrence and indicates the need for another works to be established in the area. The delay in the killing of lambs and older sheep each year has an unnecessary damaging effect on New Zealand’s overseas earnings and the loss to the economy is borne by the farmer.”

These are the opinions of Mr J. E. Roy ds, a Weedons farmer, who has taken issue against the proposal put forward by a -North Canterbury farmer recently. More controls and priorities are not the answer, he says. In a letter to the agricultural editor of “The Press,” Mr Royds says: “Most farmers would agree with the farmer in your article on lamb killing in drought years as far as the necessity for killing promptly is concerned, because with the greatly increased sheep population in Canterbury the same problem arises almost every year. “The loss entailed to both the farmer and the country as a whole, because of delays in killing fat sheep when ready, is staggering. The holding of say, 100 lambs on fattening feed for one week means, as it takes four to five weeks to fatten a lamb, that 20 to 25 lambs fewer are fattened. “The position with grown sheep is just as damaging to our economy. The sheep usually cannot be killed until early autumn, which means another loss of feed, which costs money to produce, and in the case of ewes mainly, a loss of quality and value through overfatness.

“The answer is quite clearly not more controls and priorities. Surely we have too many now. How could a controlling body issuing these, tell of the need of individual farmers, even in favoured areas, to sell sheep to pay their bills. Another Works “Priorities would not make available space for one more sheep, so the answer must be that for our normal requirements, another freezing works capable of killing at least 100.000 sheep is needed. “Southland farmers have nearly completed a works of their own after many years of fighting to obtain permission from the controlling bodies, and we should do the same in Canterbury.

“It would be a very useful guide to farmers if you could publish the numbers of sheep in Canterbury, Westland and Marlborough as one group and Southland for comparison, together with the available killing and storage space in those areas,” Mr Royds says.

The above request was referred to the New Zealand Meat Producers’ Board for comment, but its reply was that the information asked for was confidential and could not be disclosed. An executive member of a freezing company said that an additional freezing works handling 100,000 sheep or. iambs would not be an economic unit.

Such a works would have to maintain a full range of services and the turnover would be inadequate. Overhead costs would be so high it could not compete. This was shown by the number of small works that had fallen by the wayside since 1922. The services already available in Canterbury, if used to their full potential capacity, be adequate, he said.