“Ill-advised” Cut In Premium

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31597, 7 February 1968, Page 24

“Ill-advised” Cut In Premium

(From Our Own Reporter)

WELLINGTON, February 6.

“The Government’s decision to cut by 25 per cent the premium payable on high quality Hilgendorf wheat could prejudice hard-won improvements in the quality of flour for bread baking,” said the president of the New Zealand Association of Bakers (Mr E. H. Debreceny) today.

Mr Debreceny said his association considered the Government’s decision to reduce the premium in Hilgendorf wheat (from 20 cents to 15 cents) simultaneously with the reduction in the basic price of wheat to be “ill-advised, untimely and precipitate.”

“The evidence available suggests that the present premium is no more than adequate to maintain required levels of supply,” said Mr Debreceny. “If the Government is embarking on a trial-

and-error policy of determining the marginal premium which will produce a marginal crop of this high quality wheat, it is a policy which may well result in failure to hold recent hard-won improvements in flour quality. “It will certainly prejudice future improvements. Any incentive premium for the growing of Hilgendorf will not achieve its object unless growers themselves recognise it as positive and adequate to compensate them for the lower yields from this type of wheat.”