Aerial top-dressers ‘need Govt help’

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 34008, 24 November 1975, Page 16

Aerial top-dressers ‘need Govt help’

Many aerial topdressing companies might be out of business in three to five years because they could not finance new aircraft without Government help, a company director said in Christchurch.

A cost-benefit study was needed to determine the most efficient way to run those seasonal work companies, Mr O. G. James, managing director of James Aviation. Ltd. Rotorua, told the Chartered Institute of Transport conference.

Government price controls and union demands were virtually “crippling the industry,” Mr James said. Only when the Government took responsibility for a minimum maintenance level of top-dressing would New Zealand see the full potential of its grass lands. There should be a way “to utilise the equipment from dawn to dark, sowing farm after farm in a planned and orderly way,” he said “So long as the farmer’s ability to pav is the criteria, there is little hope for our industry improving its efficiency and preventing ourselves from being priced out of the market.” New Zealand farmers would respond to a drive for increased production if they felt they were getting a fair deal. “Put sufficient carrot in front of them, and I feel certain that sheep and cattle numbers will rise at the same rates over the next 20 years that they have over the last,” Mr James said. "Taking away the cost of fertiliser may be the carrot.”

Proper use of aircraft—in a planned operation similar to a military manoeuvre—could bring a 50 per cent improvement in efficiency. “Tn times of high prices, farmers have spent excess amounts on fertiliser rather than pav taxes, while in times of low income they have reduced fertiliser treatment or not sown at all,” Mr James said. “The results are wast-

age on one side and a deterioration in pastures on the other. “From the service industry’s point of view, it is fatal and serves only to push up costs.”

Because the industry could not recover costs, it was forced to delay the purchase of more efficient aircraft which could hold costs.

“There is a growing reluctance by farmers to carry the rest of the country on their backs,” Mr James said, "and so they allow stock numbers to run down and lower their spending on pasture improvements or capital investments, in particular fertiliser.”