Wheat Acreage

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 32120, 16 October 1969, Page 12

Wheat Acreage

The Government Statistician estimates that 279,500 acres have been sown to wheat this year, and that 274,000 acres of the total is intended for threshing. This would produce between 14 million and 15 million bushels of wheat for milling and other requirements, compared with 161 million bushels last season. Some 2 J million bushels of last season’s crop were sold overseas at a loss, so that domestic consumption must have been 14 million bushels. This season’s sowings should be ample for the country’s requirements; certainly there is no prospect of a surplus of the same proportions as last season’s. The drop in acreage is good news for Canterbury’s wheatgrowers of long standing, whose returns were reduced last season by the 12c-a-bushel retention scheme—though some of this 12c may be returned to growers when the final costs of export are assessed. Earlier this year the Associate Minister of Industries and Commerce (Mr Shelton) warned growers that if an increased acreage was sown this season the retention might be raised from 12c to 20c a bushel. This prospect was probably enough to discourage those farmers who do not usually grow wheat from repeating their last year’s venture. There need be no fear now of the retention’s being increased; and there is at least some prospect that the whole of the sum retained next season will be returned to growers.