MILK IN SCHOOLS Abolition To Give Full Savings After 1971

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32031, 4 July 1969, Page 18

MILK IN SCHOOLS Abolition To Give Full Savings After 1971

(from Our Own Reporter)

WELLINGTON, July 3.

Government outlays of some s4m will have been saved by March 31 next year as a result of the abolition of the milk-in-schools scheme in 1967, according to the Minister of Agriculture (Mr Taiboys). '

If the free milk scheme for schools had continued unchanged, he said yesterday, State spending on the scheme since its abolition would have reached $5,500,000 by March 31 next year.

He was referring to a statement by the Leader of the Opposition (Mr Kirk) that the cost of “phasing out” the scheme would reach §1,300,000 by the end of the present financial year, including a provision in the 1969 budget for §350,000.

When the free milk scheme stopped, contracts with town milk producers for 84m gallons of milk a year included

some 5m gallons of milk for free supply to schools, said the Minister.

Existing contracts could not be reduced. The milk formerly given away to schools was therefore used for conversion to cream and the manufacture of dairy pro. ducts.

‘Quite Unreasonable’

“The continuing expenditure which, results from the former milk scheme is the difference between the town milk price and the proceeds from manufacture,” said the Minister. “It would have been possible to cancel the school milk

content of contracts after the first year, but to have done so would have been quite unreasonable. Town milk farmers had arranged their herds and organised their production to meet demand; and to have cut their contracts arbitrarily would have caused hardship to many producers.” It had thus been decided that no contracts would be increased as long as they carried any provision for school milk. But the school milk would be displaced by the normal increase in the demand for town milk. That had been expected to take three or four years. Diminishing Rate In several districts all school milk had now been eliminated in that way. But in areas with slower population growth the process would take longer. Nevertheless, town milk producers expect that all school milk will be eliminated by 1971. Meanwhile, the expenditure would continue at a- diminishing rate as domestic milk sales increase, the Minister said. “The full savings should be achieved after 1971.”