‘COLD COMFORT9 SAY FARMERS

Press, Volume CVI, Issue 31318, 14 March 1967, Page 1

‘COLD COMFORT 9 SAY FARMERS

tH.Z. Preu AuoeioMonS WELLINGTON, March 13. “On the face of the bare announcement we have gained a further 6000 tons in our quota of butter for supply to the British market, but there is cold comfort for the New Zealand dairy farmer in the sentiments which lie behind this decision,” the chairman of the Dominion dairy section council of Federated Farmers, Mr J. J. Parsons, said. “It is obvious that the British Government is firm in two intentions,” Mr Parson said. “First it intends to drive down and keep down butter prices on the United Kingdom market at their present level and, second—and I regard this as even more serious it is making an apparently welcoming gesture to European suppliers who may then be disposed to view more kindly Britain’s efforts to join the E.E.C. “By increasing so substantially the high level of total butter imports the British Government’s price-restraint policy is threatening the economics of butter trading on the United Kingdom market for efficient, unsubsidised producers.

“We are also deeply concerned that butter oil and other so-called ‘near-butter’ products should not have been included specifically in the amount set for total imports,” Mr Parsons said.