Exhaustive, impartial study needed

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 32838, 11 February 1972, Page 12

Exhaustive, impartial study needed

“The best that can be hoped for in New Zealand is that any proposal be examined exhaustively and impartially with the objective of furthering the interests of the community as a whole,” Professor W. O. McCarthy, professor of marketing at Lincoln College, said this week when asked to comment on the proposition of Mid-Canterbury Federated Farmers that a sugar beet growing and processing industry be established in its district.

Details of the MidCanterbury case were given on these pages last week. Then Mr F. W. Newton, chairman of the sugar beet committee of the agriculture section of MidCanterbury Federated Farmers, and Mr W. R. Lobb, superintendent of the Winchmore irrigation research station, said that a viable industry could be established in the district, with capacity for expansion.

“The merits of a beet sugar industry for New Zealand have been put forward regularly since 1870, if not earlier,” said Professor McCarthy. "The last time Lincoln College looked carefully at the

economics of such schemes was in 1964.

“The criterion for decision is perfectly straight forward. Could the resources used in beet sugar production and refining be used more profitably by the community elsewhere? Would there be a higher return, for example, from peas, or forestry, or fisheries, or an electronic industry, or wine making, or another university and so on.

“A critical aspect is the price to be paid for beet. New Zealand purchases its sugar at the free world market price. This is notoriously unstable for various reasons and will continue to be so. Hence assessing the viability of the proposed industry on present temporary high prices would be quite unrealistic. Inevitably prices will fall in the next year or two because countries specialising in sugar production will very rapidly raise output. All have surplus productive capacity and sugar is an annual crop. “Evfen for a highly efficient sugar-producing country, such as Australia, it has been calculated that over any long past period,

say 20 to 30 years, it would be much cheaper to take advantage of fluctuating world market prices and import all sugar rather than growing it within the country. The same could apply for New Zealand.” Before he came to Lincoln Professor McCarthy was at the University of Queensland, in a sugar growing part o», Australia.