Marketing Farmers’ ‘Main Problem’

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31169, 20 September 1966, Page 23

Marketing Farmers’ ‘Main Problem’

(New Zealand Press Association)

HAMILTON, September 19.

The establishment of markets for New Zealand’s primary produce in South-east Asia and the Pacific area was a long-term project and would not be accomplished easily said Mr E. D. Holt, president of the National Party.

The biggest challenge facing the farming industry was marketing. Before New Zealand could sell to Asian countries they must be politically stable, he said.

“We must help them reach this state,” he said. “We must also help these countries to raise their standard of living to a level where they can buy our produce, “New Zealand meat and butter would be considered luxuries in many of these countries at the moment.” The most important factor in the short term develop-’ ment of markets was maintaining and developing contacts in countries where small amounts of New Zealand produce were already being sold. “Obviously the North American market is the first one we look to here, but the pattern of agricultural protection in the United States is proving very hard to break down,” he said. Production of primary produce had increased tremend-

ously over the last seven or eight years, and he believed this was a result of the incentives provided by the National Government. The Government’s policy, he said, would be to provide just enough incentive to create “the right atmosphere" for increasing production still further. Science held some of the answers to this problem, Mr Holt said. He thought greatly increased production would come in the future from a better class of land through the use of newly developed techniques.