Farmers Worry About Rise

Press, Volume CX, Issue 32383, 24 August 1970, Page 1

Farmers Worry About Rise

Reports that workers in the freezing industry are seeking increases in wages are causing concern among producers because they fear that further substantial increases in wages in the industry would mean an increase in killing charges and that they would have no way of recouping this extra cost.

This could only lead to “killing the goose that lays the golden egg,” the chairman of the meat and wool section of North Canterbury Federated Farmers, Mr A. F. Wright, said at the week-end. “Meat producers- will be greatly alarmed by the item in the city edition of ‘The Press’ on Friday in which a clear indication is given that

most sections of workers in the freezing industry are again demanding a major increase in their wage rates,” said Mr Wright. “I am sure that all farmers will agree that the freezing . industry worker is entitled to a fair and just reward in an occupation, many sections of which have only seasonal requirements,” he said.

“However, when the wage bill falls back on producers through killing charges, they do become more than slightly irritated when these demands for increases are made so regularly. With no alternatives, farmers are in the position of having to grin and bear it I can say now that the grin is rapidly turning into a snarl.

• “Four months ago the whole industry received a big increase in wage rates. This meant an immediate increase in killing charges and I understand that freezer hands are again demanding in-

creases. How can the situation have changed so much in four months?

“If wage increases mean more productivity, then we can accept some of them, but in Canterbury the quota means that there is no more productivity or use of- facilities, which have cost the industry so much and which must be serviced by the killing charge. “Producers are receiving less and less of the amount their produce earns for the nation. The New Zealand farmer produces 85 per cent of overseas exchange and receives only 7.5 per cent of the national income, a percentage which is rapidly getting smaller,” said Mr Wright “The Minister of Finance, Mr Muldoon, said recently that woolgrowers had increased their production by 40 per cent in the last five years but were now in fact receiving less in gross returns than five years ago. “The same situation is be-

ginning to appear in the meat industry, with the returns to the producer not showing any increase in the last season when the schedule, pelt and skin prices are taken into consideration. It would appear that farmers are in no way being compensated for their increased costs, so that any rise in killing charges will have to be absorbed from the reduced returns being received.

“This is severely affecting production as the fall in the sheep numbers in Canterbury indicates. This is affecting all production regardless of the price which the farmer paid for his land,” he said. “Farm investment in recent months has become very low because of reduced profits and any further lowering in profits would naturally further decrease the rate of production growth. This greatly concerned the Minister of Finance when he presented his Budget,” Mr Wright said.