Meat Board 'no Santa Claus’

Press, Volume CXI, Issue 32797, 23 December 1971, Page 3

Meat Board ' no Santa Claus’

(New Zealand Press Association)

WELLINGTON, December 22.

The Meat Board had no intention of acting as a Santa Claus to New Zealand’s farmers in agreeing to its slsm contribution to the sheep retention scheme, Sir John Ormond, the board’s chairman, said today.

“Its sole purpose is to give the sheepfarmer quick relief and the chance to plough back money into his property, so that both he and the nation will eventually benefit from production increases.”

Sir John Ormond was commenting on the details of the sheep retention scheme, announced by the Government yesterday. *T am sure that New Zealand’s sheepfarmers are sen sible people who will not waste this chance to aid their own recovery from a pretty grim situation. They know as well as anyone that proper use of this money will strengthen their own position in the future,” he said. A minority of people seemed to believe that the sheep retention scheme amounted to an unnecessary hand-out to sheepfarmers. "This isn’t the case at all. We have been facing in the sheep industry a critical period that has required a definite response, or else

everybody throughout the country would ultimately have felt the effects. “The Meat Board has responded both by guaranteeing a minimum schedule price for lamb, and also through the payment of slsm from Meat Industry Reserve Account funds.

“This is no subsidy on otir part. It is the farmers’ own funds, held back in earlier days and now returned in a time of need,” he said.