Pork production 'in a pickle’

Press, 27 March 1980, Page 12

Pork production 'in a pickle’

PA Wellington Pig-meat production and marketing in New Zealand is in chaos, Labour’s spokesman on agriculture, Sir Basil Arthur, has said. Pork cuts continued to flood into the country while locally produced pigs went into a rapidlygrowing “porkberg,” he said. “The need to introduce a scheme to stabilise the industry is urgent,” he said. Sir Basil accused the Government of treating pig-meat producers as the poor relations in primary industry. In the final quarter of last year, there had been an importing spree of pork legs to meet the expected Christmas market. “When I warned the Government that this would have a disastrous effect on the local pork producers, the Under-Sec-retary of Agriculture (Mr

Talbot) brushed aside my objections by saying that we needed these extra legs because we don’t breed eight-legged pigs. “His warped sense of humour has now turned sour, as the pork-industry representatives begin hammering on his door, calling for an industry stabilisation plan and import limitation,” Sir Basil said. As it had turned out. the demand for Christmas ham had fallen sharply. “Now we have an excess, with imported pork and steady supply of local pig meat coming onto the market. ■“The Pork Marketing Board is now being forced into the position of buying u.p>this4 excess,;- much., of •wliich was - originally imported at' a higher price (than locally produced pig meats, and is now exporting this product — dumping it in . fact at what. must surely be 'a huge loss,” Sir Basil said.