Finding Finance For Farming Growth

Press, Volume CIV, Issue 30919, 27 November 1965, Page 1

Finding Finance For Farming Growth

Financing the development of New Zealand farming to meet production targets was beyond the capacity of normal lending institutions, Mr G. N. Francis, president of the Canterbury Agricultural and Pastoral Association, told farmers at the North Canterbury district export lamb competition yesterday.

Mr Francis said finance for the agricultural development programme, which demanded production increases of 3.7 per cent a year, was causing concern.

Stock and station firms were extended to the limit and banks were also extended. If the production targets were to be achieved, and it was essential that they should be, some sort of lowinterest second-mortgage money was needed. This could be provided only by the State, to form the basis of the capital required for growth of agricultural production. At this year’s Lincoln College farmers’ conference, a member of the Treasury had said that to meet the production targets some £3oom to £soom might require to be

invested In farming. That was a sum completely outside the limits of normal lending institutions, said Mr Francis.