‘Many Variable Factors’ In Farm Planning

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32037, 11 July 1969, Page 5

‘Many Variable Factors’ In Farm Planning

No simple directions could be given to farmers about the sort of produce that they should be growing for a changing world market, the Minister of Agriculture (Mr Taiboys) said at a farm forum at Temuka.

He was replying to recent criticism alleging lack of direction to farmers from the agriculture committee of the National Development Conference.

People asked, Mr Taiboys said, why farmers did not receive the same leadership and direction as British famers received in the apnual price reviews published by the British Government. It was relatively simple to plan a course of action, he said, when the assumptions that had to be made were few and were of a minor nature, but a country that was producing for world markets did not enjoy these benefits and planning that was subject to so many variable factors was also subject to frequent recasting. Mr Taiboys referred to projections made by the Food and Agriculture Organisation in 1966 about prospects for beef and sheepmeats. He listed developments since then that could have a bearing on these predictions. It was not possible to forecast the outcome of moves in the United States to restrict meat imports, Mr Taiboys said. At present meat prices in that country were high, and rising, and one of the ominous side effects of the possible development of a buyer resistance to red meats could be increased use of meat substitutes, in particular those based on soya beans. Recalling that early in 1964 a team of New Zealand negotiators had gone to Britain to discuss what the British authorities considered to be a serious over-supply of meat in that country, Mr Taiboys said that only a matter of weeks later a shortage of meat had developed throughout the world.

Farming in this country could not be compared with that in the European Economic Community, in the United Kingdom, or in the United States, he said. The price review in Britain was almost a direction to farmers to produce certain commodities for

internal consumption by some 50m people. This review was also in the nature of a justification to the public for the amount of public money that was spent in support of agriculture. New Zealand was producing agricultural products for sale in world markets and had to accept the market prices. These were not determined by the Government or the producer boards.