Farmers Seek Annual Talks On Agriculture

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29726, 20 January 1962, Page 10

Farmers Seek Annual Talks On Agriculture

(N.Z. Press Association) WELLINGTON, January 19.

The Makara-Hutt Valley provincial executive of Federated Farmers today called for annual discussions between producers and the Government on the situation of New Zealand agriculture.

The federation’s Dominion Council is to be asked to request discussions similar to those held annually between the British Government and the National Farmers’ Union.

The general secretary of Federated Farmers, Mr A. P. O’Shea, told the executive that on the basis of changed money values, the export price of lamb today was not as high as it was in 1931. Few persons realised the position the country was in, he said.

If the farmer was in trouble, the country was in trouble; and with the drought and disastrous fall in prices, a very large number of sheepfarmers were in real trouble today, Mr O’Shea said. Most sheepfarmers this year would suffer a cut in income of at least a third. Many would have no net income at all.

Yet some sections of the community were demanding an increase in their income, he said. In 1931 the schedule price for lamb was 5%d per lb. At present it was 12%d. The value of money today was

about a third of its value during the slump, so that to be getting as good a return as in those days, the sheepfarmer would need to receive Is 5 Vid, or about a third more than the present price. The ewe mutton price position was worse still. It was down to 3%d and 4d per lb — not the prico of cats’ meat. Yet in spite of this most serious situation some persons were clamouring for another round of inflation, he said. Some were advocating industrialisation on a pattern that would make it even more difficult for many farmers to survive.