Meat Consortium Suggested

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31785, 16 September 1968, Page 26

Meat Consortium Suggested

The establishment of a consortium of New Zealand producers, through the Meat Board, and their Australian counterparts to help meat marketing in the Pacific Basin was suggested last evening by the chairman of the South Canterbury meat and wool section of Federated Farmers (Mi D. J. Hulston). Mr Hulston, commenting on the stoppage of beef exports to the United States, said that the present position illustrated the need for such a consortium.

The action of the Government and Meat Board in the present situation, he said, was a very diplomatic move and he believed it would have favourable results when the United States’s meat import policies were reviewed.

The writing had been on the wall for some time, he

said, because of the large quantities of meat that had been going into the United States, not necessarily from New Zealand.

However, outside the United States there were still ample markets for beef, although these would not necessarily give the extremely high prices that the American market had been prepared to pay. It was disappointing that this position should have been reached, particularly when there had been an upsurge recently in the beef industry, said the chairman of the North Canterbury meat and wool section (Mr A. F. Wiight). It was to be hoped that the ban on exports to the United States would only be a temporary one and that the increased volume of production would find a ready market