Higher price for wheat sought

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33452, 6 February 1974, Page 2

Higher price for wheat sought

The agriculture executive of North Canterbury Federated Farmers considers the 1975 wheat price unrealistic, and wants the Government immediately to consider raising it.

The executive yesterday (decided to ask the forthcoming Dominion meeting of thej agriculture section of Feder-. ,ate<’. Farmers in Wellington to approach the Cabinet: . Ministers concerned in fixing the price, seeking to have it renegotiated. The executive also wants: the gross-return figures on ; which the wheat price is: based investigated, and the Minister of Agriculture (Mr Moyle) asked how they were arrived at. Mr G. E. J. Hutton, (Darfield) who suggested the! remit to the Dominion coun-i cil, said Mr Moyle’s gross-! return figures, which included a projected average i .yield of 60 bushels were “a! damned 1 ; ” He asked where in Canter-, bury Mr Moyle could findj land yielding 60 bushels an: acre. “It's just not economic to grow wheat at Mr Moyle’s price.” GRAIN IMPORTS The executive’s chairman (Mr N. Q. Wright) said that 35,000 tons of wheat had to be imported this year; the shortfall this coming season would be as high as 70,000 tons. A price of $2.50 a bushel had been suggested by Federated Farmers for the 1975 season, Mr G. H, Rennie said. However, the Government had settled on $2.30. If this situation continued, farmers might be obliged to adopt lactics more in line with

other groups seeking income rises, he said. What farmers had suggested had been a fair and reasonable price.