Pig-meat stabilisation plan favoured

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32678, 6 August 1971, Page 14

Pig-meat stabilisation plan favoured

The Pork Industry Council, formerly known as the Pig Producers’ Coun cil, is now seeking the authority of the Minister of Agriculture (Mr Carter) to implement an industry stabilisation scheme early next year.

While the proposed scheme, given approval at the recent industry conference in Wellington, contains price support provisions, it will also seek by close observation of production and market trends to maintain prices to producers by promotion and advertising, so that price support will be a more or less last resort. In his latest annual report, the chairman of the council, Mr R. A. Oliver, noted that as the industry became increasingly dependent on high-cost grain based feeds, the need to reduce within-season pigprice variations would become more pertinent. Modem pig production, he said, had a high capital requirement and some national oriented floor price system was essential for production stability and investment security.

The industry conference voted in favour of a 30c per head levy being imposed on all pigs slaughtered to finance the scheme. On the basis of a kill of about 80,000 pigs this would provide about $240,000 per year.

Mr C. W. Foster, South Island ward representative on the council, said this week that the Meat Board had been approached to underwrite the scheme to the extent of two years* levy returns to pennit it to function in the early stages.

Under the scheme a floor price would be fixed on the basis of certain criteria by Government and industry representatives and this would be reviewed from time to time in the light of changing circumstances. Meat companies at the end of any week would be able to declare any pig meats that they held surplus to local requirements, and they, or an agent, would then have to sell this on the export market, with any deficiency between the price and the floor price being met out of the pork industry stabilisation fund. It was emphasised that the floor price would be calculated only to give an economic return to the efficient producer and thus would not be directed at encouraging uneconomic production. Grain feeding costs are likely to be one of the criteria used in assessing the floor price. At the industry conference there were some who believed that as pig numbers were now on the way down again and prices in the forseeable future were likely to be firm, there would be no need for such a stabilisation scheme. But at the close of the discussion, the chairman of the Canterbury district

Pork Producers’ Committee, Mr G. S. Meyer, of Lincoln, said that if a period of better prices for pig meats was in the offing, then this was the time to impose a levy on the industry rather than when prices were failing.

The scheme should benefit consumers as well as producers. For in addition to trying to iron out the steep falls in prices that producers have experienced in the past it will also, it is hoped, work in reverse in that there will not be the sudden declines in production that in the past have accompanied price fails with subsequent sharp rises again in prices to the detri-

ment of the consumer and consumption of pig meats. The council probably will embark soon on a pork-pro-motion campaign in Canterbury, mainly in the Christchurch area. Mr Meyer said this week that the three Canterbury delegates to the industry conference soon would be calling meetings in Ashburton, Rangiora and Leeston when they would report directly to producers on the proceedings of the industry conference. As well as himself the delegates were also Messrs D. J. Hurford (Leeston) and A. E. Williams (Kaiapoi). Mr Meyer regarded as one of the most important decisions of the Industry conference Its authorisation of the council to ask the Government to make the council a statutory authority under the Primary Products Marketing Act It was not intended that the council should set itself up as a marketing board, but that it should have greater control over its own affairs and over the industry. This also would give it a separate identity, he said.

The need for this had been made very clear last year when bacon had been imported from Canada without the knowledge of the council.

On this subject, Mr Oliver said: “the Government decision to approve the importation without reference to. or consultation with, the producers’ organisation was deserving of the angry reaction it received. It is clear that the producers must strengthen their position in the industry and the move to have the council constituted a statutory authority under the Primary Products Marketing Act is essential to the future welfare of pig producers.”.

Mr Oliver told the conference that it was now evident that the major factor in determining both the level of pig production and the price of market pigs and in turn all classes of pig meats was the availability and price of <eed grains. Feed costs in any grainbased meat production represented a major proportion of the total production costs and it was therefore inevitable that future pig production development would be located adjacent to major grain growing areas. This trend would be hastened by the recent steep rise in rail freights.

Mr Meyer said that there had been a lot of concern at the conference about the feed barley situation. All that could be done at this stage was to press for direct representation of the industry on the grain and seeds committee of the Agricultural Production Council, as the pig industry definitely would become more and more reliant on barley. It was predicted that in the next year the industry would require up to 200,000 tons of barley and thus it would continue to press for research into the breeding of higher yielding barleys, and their release to help meet this requirement. •This situation was the consequence of diminishing supplies of dairy by-pro-l ducts for pig feeding, and! this was something that was I likely to continue. It was| felt that the remaining sup-, plies of skim milk probably would disappear in the next 12 to 18 months and the! availability of whey for, feeding to pigs also was likely to decline fairly I rapidly.

This, of course, woi’ have the effect of maki Canterbury the centre this industry. There was disappoi' ment and concern at t conference, said Mr Mey at the little Government terest in their industry. "In the past, the pig i dustry largely has bei ignored by Government said Mr Oliver. "Hie las Budget is an example ant we will have to make it clear to Government that we expect much more positive assistance in the future. We may surely expect any Minister of Finance to treat the pig industry with its s6om value of product at least in the same way as any other primary industry in respect of assisting us in our efforts to progress.

"For instance, simply because we had the initiative in the early thirties to establish farm advisory services for which farmers themselves have paid out, is no reason for Government to withhold the sort of assistance for advisory services which it so freely provides to other sectors."

Mr Meyer said that the Government’s direct grant to the industry had not altered for some years.