High Prices For Venison

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 31985, 12 May 1969, Page 26

High Prices For Venison

(N.Z. Press Association)

PALMERSTON NORTH, May 11.

Deer hunters in the North Island are being paid up to 37c a pound for venison—representing $4O for an averagesize deer.

One processor, the Aotearoa Wild Game Supplies Company, in Rotorua, claims this amounts to a price war. The manager of the firm (Mr A. G. Jennings) said the high prices were an attempt to squeeze bim out of the wild game meat industry. He could pay only up to 31c a pound. But the manager of Consolidated Traders, Ltd, of Wellington (Mr T. R. Giles) considers the high prices are the result of a good demand from Western Europe for game meat.

Supplies from Eastern Europe were restricted at present because of foot-and-mouth disease problems, he said.

The higher prices being received for game meat and by-products were being passed on to the shooters, although his company had been

approached by other producers in the industry and asked to keep prices down.

He said he considered the prices would Continue to rise as long as supplies from Eastern Europe were limited. This would no doubt mean extreme hunting pressure on the available wild game supplies. This could be detrimental to his firm, which had pioneered the deer farming industry, he said. At the present high prices he doubted if the wild game would last long enough for the deer farms to come into production;

Before the high prices came into force there had been a decrease in the wild game population. The supply position was becoming quite grave, even before producers started competing for the available supplies. Mr Giles said he hoped the supplies could be maintained until the deer farms came into production. Any gap in supply could endanger overseas markets. Twenty years had been spent toying to “de-brain-wash” some New Zealanders about deer farming. Seven laws had to be changed to make it legal.