"No subsidy to farmer”

Press, Volume CXIII, Issue 38183, 24 March 1973, Page 2

"No subsidy to farmer”

Farmers would not receive one cent of public money used to hold the price of sheep meat to the New Zealand consumer, said the acting Dominion president of Federated Farmers (Mr VV. N. Dunlop) last evening.

Mr Dunlop was commenting on reports that the Minister of Trade and Industry (Mr Freer), when announcing the scheme to stabilise meat prices within New' Zealand, had said: “The cost of sheep

meat subsidies paid to farmers between now and the end of the export killing season ' in June-July could be more ' than s7m.” The Minister had advised i him yesterday, said Mr Dunlop, that he had made it perfectly clear that the subsidy was not paid to farmers but 'at the wholesale level.

The price to fanners would be set at the market place, based on supply and demand, and in relation to the export schedule, as applied now. “We accepted the Minister’s assurance,” said Mr Dunlop.

Federated Farmers had been involved in the detailed discussions with the Minister and his officers in an endeavour to make sure that the proposals did not distort the market price, either within New Zealand or for exports. “The scheme is purely for the benefit of the consumer,

in an endeavour to stabilise the price of meat in line with present Government policy,” said Mr Dunlop.