Exports The Key To Vegetable Profits

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30745, 8 May 1965, Page 3

Exports The Key To Vegetable Profits

(New Zealand Press Association/

AUCKLAND, May 7.

Without the expected development in export markets, the New Zealand vegetable grower was no longer able to maintain an adequate and fair net return on crops for processing, Mr D. W. Goble told the vegetable growers’ convention tonight.

“At least 25 per cent of pea growers are producing at a financial loss and many more are classed as marginal,” he said. The secretary of the Vegetable and Produce Growers' Federation, Mr Goble said process growers had placed great reliance on the expansion of exports and the resulting increase in acreage to help cover rising production costs.

“New Zealand processors, convinced that the quality of our processed vegetables is equal to the best available on overseas markets,” he said, “have continually emphasised that price is the primary factor in developing and expanding exports.” He said that although grow-

ers had refrained from asking for price adjustments (and processors were paying no more for vegetables than they were seven or eight years ago) the value of exports was less than it was then. However, it showed a rising trend recently.