Wheat Prices For 1962-63 Season

Press, Volume C, Issue 29691, 8 December 1961, Page 18

Wheat Prices For 1962-63 Season

. (From Our Own Reporter) WELLINGTON, December 7. The basic price for the 1962-63 wheat harvest in the South Island will be 13s 6d a bushel on the usual terms—free on rail at the grower’s nearest siding, sacks extra. The basic price for-North Island wheat • production will remain at 14s 6|d a bushel.

A 2s premium will be paid for Hilgendorf 1947 and Hilgendorf 1961 varieties, and there will continue to be a discount of 2d a bushel on Arawa. Storage payments for the 1961-62 harvest, for wheat held on farms, or in merchants’ stores on farmers’ account, have been approved on the same terms as for the 1960-61 crop. The increase in New Zealand wheat production from 3.73 million bushels in 195758 to 8.7 million bushels in 1959-60 had been maintained with a crop of 8.8 million bushels in 1960-61, the acting Minister of Industries and Commerce (Mr Shand) said tonight. “This consolidation of a greater degree of self-suffi-ciency in New Zealand’s requirements of high-quality wheat has, by reducing still more the proportion of imports, enabled an extra saving of overseas funds. “In spite of the dry conditions that have prevailed, the current season’s crop is expected to reach between 9.5 and 10 million bushels resulting in a further reduction in purchases overseas,” said Mr Shand. The continued encouragement of wheat growing, together with the recent intro-

duction of the Hilgendorf 1961 variety with high yield potentiality, as well as superior baking quality, was expected to earn even more co-opera-tion next season by farmers eager to diversify the use of their land. A crop of 11 to 12 million bushels was not impossible, and would be a very real contribution to New Zealand's economic health.