U.K. FARMERS’ SUBSIDIES UP

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31623, 8 March 1968, Page 9

U.K. FARMERS’ SUBSIDIES UP

(N.Z.P.A.-Reuter—Copyright) LONDON, March 7. Britain today announced details of a bid to cut its food imports and boost home production by giving farmers their largest subsidies for 20 years.

The increase in guaranteed prices and grants, disclosed in the Government’s Farm Price Review, amounts to £s2|m. The main commodities to benefit are beef and wheat, which are among the largest items on Britain’s huge food import bill. They alone cost the country about £2som a year. The guaranteed prices of both commodities are being increased by about 5 per cent. The price for beef cattle will be £lO per cwt and for wheat £1 7s 5d per cwt. Other farm products to benefit include pigs, sheep, milk, barley, potatoes and sugar beet The guaranteed price of eggs is to go down. In many cases the Government is increasing the production limit on which the guaranteed price is paid. All limits for wheat are being abolished. The increase subsidies will leave the farmers to find about one quarter of their higher production costs, estimated to have risen by £6B jm for a full year. The review says there has been a gradual rise in the demand for mutton and lamb, but this seems likely to be weaker in the future than had at first been envisaged. To ensure adequate flocks and to cover rising costs, the guaranteed price for fat sheep is to be increased by 2id per lb. The Minister of Agriculture (Mr Fred Peart) who tabled the White Paper in the Commons, said later he had explained to Australia an#~New Zealand that the "selective expansion programme” for British agriculture was not aimed at affecting their places in the British market.

Doubt Expressed

“The Times” said in an editorial that the review must surely mark the end of the road for the present form of British agricultural policy, but it was doubtful whether the award of more than £som would make many farmers better off or bring about the changes in farm production the Government would like. “. . . The award, large though it seems, still leaves a quarter of the £6Bm rise in

yearly expenses to be met out of farm incomes, and while the increase in farming productivity is estimated at £3om this extra income has largely to finance new investment as well as absorb the rise in costs not provided for in the review,” the editorial says. In 1966, Britain’s imports of food and live animals totalled £l6oom.