N.Z.’s ‘national obsession’ with Britain decried

Press, 2 December 1978, Page 19

N.Z.’s ‘national obsession’ with Britain decried

NZPA London New Zealand will not Change its “traditional” approach to sheep production while it continues its national obsession” with the British market, a leading British commentator has said. Christopher Parkes, a commodities writer for the authoritative “Financial limes.” who was in New Zealand recently as a guest of the Government, said that significant markets for New Zealand lamb were going begging. Ihe New Zealand Meat Board could not suppit sufficient top-quality lambs for the United States market, and there was "a brand-new unexploited market across the Pacific.”

“But the national obsession with the British market always intrudes in anv conversation about the prospects,” Mr Parkes said.

“Even though Britain offers such meagre returns (35 per cent of the Smithfield price returns to the producer), in spite of the 20 per cent common customs tariff raised against lamb, in spite of rapidly shrinking consumption and the dangers threatened by the plans for a common marketing regime for lamb in r

ope, the cry goes up that, regardless of cost, tradi= tional outlets must not not be neglected. “While that attitude prevails there can be no fundamental change in the ‘traditional’ approach to sheep production in New Zealand.”

Mr Parks said that efforts to improve the bloodlines of New Zealand sheep-breeding stock and improve the quality of the product had not been successful, and had been set back by the destruction earlier this year of a 3000head experimental flock which had contracted a disease. The stock had had the potential to boost the national lambing percentage 30 per cent, and Mr Parks quoted an unnamed senior Government official as saying the slaughter was “just one symptom of the over-con-servatism of New Zealand farming, and one of the biggest setbacks in years’ for agricultural development.” However, the Meat Board’s European director, Mr. A Frazer, said that the board still saw no realistic alternative to the British market for the huge quantities of lamb sold there. In spite of criticism of the return to the farmer, Mr Frazer said: “In realistic terms, nowhere in the world was paying as well as Smithfield a month ago.”

The board was working hard to develop the United States market, “but the record of quantities and returns doesn’t suggest this will be a vast market.”