Opinions On Wheat Export Differs

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31763, 21 August 1968, Page 12

Opinions On Wheat Export Differs

Opinions on the prospects of developing an export trade in wheat differed among speakers at the annual conference of the New Zealand Institute of Agricultural Science yesterday at Lincoln College.

Dr H. C. Smith, director of the Crop Research Division of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, replying to a question, said there was no doubt there was a market in the world for any quality or quantity of wheat New Zealand would produce. The economics of wheat production in New Zealand was very much better than in many other areas, but it was a question of how the return from wheat production compared with that from other forms of production. However, wheat production in New Zealand had become more competitive since devaluation. A further advantage could come from the release of even higher-yielding varieties of wheat than those already in use.

Questioned why the Government had “seemed to be in a state of panic” when New Zealand appeared to be likely to become self-sufficient in wheat, Dr Smith said that the Government was atjvised by boards and the Department of Agriculture which tended to be conservative in outlook, and he thought the Government had been wrongly advised. “No Subsidy Funds”

An economist of the Department of Agriculture in Wellington, Mr J. V. White, said that the concern was that there were no funds to pay the subsidy on surplus wheat, as the price being paid in New Zealand was well above the world price The payment of a subsidy on an export commodity was also something that New Zealand was protesting about elsewhere. Mr White said he could not agree that markets for wheat were unlimited. Big stocks had built up in Canada and the United States this year, and Australia was considering changing its wheat-pricing policy to discourage production.

The stage had been reached in New Zealand where the export of small grains was almost as profitable as butter, cheese, wool and meat, said Dr Smith in his presidential address to the conference. It was therefore regrettable that some Government departments and semiofficial boards were reluctant to investigate prospective markets.

Not only should a high priority be given to this type of production and market research, but it should be obligatory for these boards and departments periodically to survey export prospects. The difficulty of getting this research started, and the depedence of conclusions on up-to-date results of research in plant breeding and production methods, suggested that new sections concerned With marketing of grain or process crops should be established at the appropriate research stations.

A recent study undertaken by Mr C. J. Crosbie, of the Department of Agriculture, had shown that the investment of a few million dollars in harbour installations and on farm storage would facilitate the efficient export of between 200,000 and 500,000 tons of grain from Canterbury and Southland each year. South-East Asia

With the advent of highyielding varieties New Zealand could become a wheatexporting country because of the greatly increasing markets in South-East Asia and Japan, said Mr P. D. Blomfield, director (technical) of Potash (N.Z.), Ltd, in a paper to the

conference. Barley could also be exported to Japan at acceptable prices for stock raising. A thorough investigation into the needs for feed grain and animal feedstuffs in Japan and South-East Asia was necessary, he said. Already it had been ascertained that the demand for animal feedstuffs, high in protein, was increasing at the rate of 14 per cent a year in Japan.