Lamb prices

Press, 22 February 1980, Page 12

Lamb prices

Sir, —“Jobs at Belfast works threatened” was a headline (“The Press,” February 16). The company’s managing director, Mr D., Morten, said that efforts were being made to avoid redundancies. Mr Morten should know that the. Belfast meat works was notorious for strikes and hold-ups especially if there was a drought and lots of cattle waiting to be killed! Why are there no strikes this s'eason at any freezing works in the South Island? Perhaps Mr Morten could answer a question which begs an answer: why are the freezing works buyers now offering to buy lambs per head? For the last two seasons and the start of this year the farmer had only one choice, “schedule,”' the price cut back for over-fats and other penalties. It is also hard to follow why the buyers are now offering 50c and 60c per head more than at the start of the . season when the schedule has not moved up and skins are coming down. —• Yours, etc., J, LOGAN, No. 2 R.D., Ashburton. February 18, 1980. [Mr D. Morten, managing director of the Canterbury

Frozen Meat Company', rep-' lies: “(1) refute the suggestion that the Belfast works are notorious for strikes when cattle killing space is short. We have lost two days killing for domestic reasons at Belfast since the opening of our new beefhouse in 1975; any other stoppages there have been on a national basis on such things as conciliation, F.O.L. meetings, etc. (2) Mr Logan seems to forget that the start of the whole indusry in New Zealand was delayed this season due to a disagreement over conciliation. In addition to this, one works in the south did not start beef killing until late in January and according to news media reports, two mutton works are currently not in production. For the record we lost one day’s kill at one of our works (not Belfast) last week in a dispute relating to safety. (3) Due to the slow lamb kill this year, certain exporters are having problems in filling orders and have been paying in excess of schedule in order to attract killing. With reference to previous seasons, farmers who did not wish to accept schedule had the alternative of killing through company pools or co-operative marketing organisations.”]