Some shadows but outlook fair

Press, Volume CXII, Issue 32879, 30 March 1972, Page 9

Some shadows but outlook fair

International surveys suggest that meat prices should continue to rise as demand increases faster than supplies. Speaking to fanners attending the Canterbury Agricultural and Pastoral Association’s beef and beef cuts competition this week, Mr J. V. White, economist to the Meat Board, said that recently revised projections by the Food and Agriculture Organisation indicated that there would be a deficit of 1.6 m tons of beef and 600,000 tons of sheep meats by 1980. These were, of course, projections and not predictions, and depended on the validity of the assumptions which had been made about population increase, rate of

increase in demand and how production would develop. However he said that the previous F.A.O. projections for 1970 seemed to have worked out fairly well, and those for 1975 looked as though they could, in fact, have been predictions. There were, nevertheless, one or two important points to remember. Whenever an authoritative body, such as this, projected a deficit, and therefore higher prices, there was a tendency for resources to move into that product, and therefore the supply to be greater than projected. The World Bank was lending a lot of money to developing countries to encourage livestock production, and beef in particular, and in Australia cattle numbers had increased by more than 40 per cent since 1966 and further increases were in prospect. The other, and possibly

the more serious problem, was that of access. At the moment the beef market depended on continued access to the lucrative American market, and it looked as though this should continue, but access for agricultural products to the markets of industrial countries was very much a political football. At the same time, however, the Japanese market had been further liberalised, the Canadian market was developing and it was his view that an enlarged European Economic Community could develop an increasing shortage of meat. This was indicated by figures of increased consumption per head. “If one wants to be fanciful and is interested arithmetically it can be calculated that if the present E.E.C. countries, plus Japan and Russia, were to reach the per head level of consumption of the United States we would need more than 20m tons more of beef.”

He was aware of some measure of threat from synthetic meat, particularly to prices for manufacturing meats, but the world protein shortage was going to be so great that he was certain that there would be room for both. “In short, l am optimistic about the prospects for prices in overseas markets,” said Mr White. But what the farmer would get was quite a different story. This would depend entirely upon what measure of success was achieved in controlling inflation internally. Mr W. M. Cleland, general manager of the New Zealand Refrigerating Company, showed the farmers samples of synthetic meat materials made from soya beans. While they did not constitute a real threat at the moment, he said that they could not be ignored and could pose a threat to export meat markets. In, the United States, where there had been two large pilot plants, he said one company was now going into large scale production.

When he had been in the United States last year he had eaten hamburgers in which the “meat” was based on soya beans, and in the way that the Americans ate these items he said that he really could not tell the difference from the natural product. When he had eaten the synthetic meat without a dressing, there had been a difference, but it was not very great.