LEVEL OF LEVY FOR MEAT

Press, 15 June 1979, Page 10

LEVEL OF LEVY FOR MEAT

It will be recalled by readers of an item on these pages a few weeks ago about the skim-off from beef prices into the beef stabilisation or buffer account that the chairman of the Meat Board, Mr Hilgendorf, was quoted as saying that if his board was to adopt a system like the Wool Board, where a levy was placed on producers’ returns to fund stabilisation, or price smoothing, a high levy would have to be imposed, and it would, of course, apply in bad seasons as well as good ones. We are indebted to the secretary of the board, Mr M, W. Calder, for some figures which indicate the sort of money that would be required and the levy that would therefore be necessary. In the four seasons from 1974-75 to 1977-78 Mr Calder said that the

total amount paid out to beef producers in supplements of all sorts had been S7OM. This represented an average of 517.5 M per season. On the basis of schedule prices it was estimated that producers had erceived an average of $393M over each of these seasons.

Thus to provide the $17.5M needed to fund a price smoothing or stabilisation scheme a levy of about 4| per cent would be required. Mr Calder agreed that the four years referred to were what could be called a low price period, but he said that following a period of higher prices it was likely that producers would expect supplementation to be at a higher level if this became necessary again, so that a levy of about 4| per cent could be necessary.