Higher Freights Worry Farmers

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31239, 10 December 1966, Page 3

Higher Freights Worry Farmers

(New Zealand Press Association) WELLINGTON, December 9. Increases in rail freight charges had added to the steadily increasing list of higher costs to the farming industry, the Dominion president of Federated Farmers (Mr P. S. Plummer) said today.

“A few shillings here, and a few pennies there, do not seem much individually, but added all together they amount to quite a lot,” he said. “Farmers’ margins of profitability have already been depressed sharply by lower returns from lamb and wool.” According to information supplied by the Railways Department, the new charges would mean that for a journey of 100 miles a J waggon which carried 60 sheep or 80 lambs would cost £8 Bs, an increase of 8s and a LA highside waggon carrying bulk grain or bulk fertiliser for 100 miles would cost £2 a ton, an increase of about Is 6d. The 5 per cent increase in freight charges would apply to all classes of livestock, produce and both bulk and bag-

ged fertiliser and grain, the federation had been told. “How much longer the farmer can go on producing more and more to get the same return I do not know,” said Mr Plummer. “Unlike those in cost-plus industries who can pass on their increases to the consumer, the farmer is on a vicious treadmill—he has to keep running harder in order to stand still. His progress is being severely hampered by these increasing costs.”