Potato Board head retires this month

Press, 27 March 1981, Page 12

Potato Board head retires this month

At the end of this month Mr G. E. (George) Wright, of Annat in central Canterbury, gives up the leadership of the Potato Board. He has served two terms as chairman — from 1972 to 1974 and from 1976 until the present time.

At the end of the month he will terminate his association with the board, of which he has been a member since 1968. He believes that he has been on the board long enough and should give way to someone else — “I think that it is a young man’s world now,” he’says. ' Looking back over his time on the board, he says that it has been interesting and also controversial, with features of the period being the end of the levy and compensation scheme, the minimum quality scheme which did not get off the ground, and also the change in the structure of the board giving growers a dominant position. During this period he said that the board had moved around the country giving growers an opportunity to meet it and discuss the issues involved.

Mr Wright has been growing potatoes all of his life

and his father, Mr L. T. Wright, was a pioneer grower in the district before him. He is a cousin of the dominion president of Federated Farmers, Mr A. F. Wright, who farms nearby. Mr Wright has a 240 ha mixed farm. His son, Donald, also has a property and the two farms are worked together. In total they grow about 400 ha of crops, including wheat, barley, grass and clover for seed as well as about 34ha of potatoes for seed.

George’s first foray into “potato politics” was when he became a member of the Malvern Potato Growers’ Association when it was formed about 30 years ago. He subsequently served as chairman of that association and he was also chairman of the central ward committee, representing all grower associations in Canterbury, which he joined about the mid 19505. Later he was also a member of the Dominion Potato Committee before becoming a member of the Potato Board. Over the years he says that one of the most significant changes in the industry has been that whereas in the

1950 s and 1960 s up to 40 to 50 per cent of the North Island's table supplies came from the South Island, the North was now self-sufficient with only, minimal quantities still coming from the south. A major reason for this shift of production had been the control of blight, with systemic chemicals which made it easier to grow the crop in the north. There had also been the development of better varieties and growing techniques and increased freight rates, which gave northern growers a price advantage, and, of course, the fact that a large part of the country's population was located in the North Island.

While quite good seed could also be produced in the central part of the North Island around Kimbolton, where the land Was at an elevation of about 300 m, Mr Wright said that the bulk of the seed used by northern growers still, came from the South Island, and in particular from areas around Sheffield and Methven.

Mr Wright says that there have also been important changes in the mechanisation of potato growing, particu-

larly in harvesting and grading. and also a trend towards potatoes going through a packing house and being offered in plastic bags. A consequence of mechanisation on the farm had been that . while numbers of growers had declined, the qrea grown by each grower had increased.

Over the years, too, there has been pressure from growers, merchants, retailers and consumers for an improvement in the quality of potatoes offered for sale. Back in 1977 Mr Wright recalled that the board had a scheme worked out under which no potatoes were to be sold below known minimum quality standards. The board had the scheme, under which it would have used inspectors to see that the requirements were being carried out, all ready to operate, but it required legislative authority to implement and the Government turned it down because it was opposed to the imposition of more controls. However, the Health Department has the powers to enforce the identification of potatoes offered for sale and the board has been keeping

an eye- on the situation and reporting to the department bad cases. Mr Wright believes that a marked improvement in quality has followed the identification of the source of lines that are offered for sale. Now this season the board is introducing a voluntary scheme under , which potatoes can be packed in accordance with the board’s standard specifications. These provide that only five per cent of the

potatoes in a line should be under 50mm in diameter, there should be no more than two per cent of dirt, virtually no wet rot and no more than five per cent of the potatoes should be misshapen or damaged. Mr Wright said that the standard would be a reasonable one. It was not a high ■ one and in fact many growers would pack now to a higher standard, but it was believed that the grade would guarantee that consumers would get a reasonable standard of potatoes. It was intended that potatoes packed to the standard would show on the package the registered number of the grower, the date of packing and a statement indicating that the potatoes had been packed to the New Zealand Potato Board’s standard specification. Growers of more than o.sha of potatoes have been required to be registered for about three years now since there was a major restructuring of the board making it grower controlled. Whereas there were previously three growers and three merchant representatives on the board there are now six growers, two merchants and a Government representative representing consumers.

Mr Wright does not think that the change in the composition of the board has made a great deal of difference to it — every member was there for the good of the industry, he said. . Up until the change in the composition of the board it operated a levy and compensation scheme — growers paid a levy on their potatoes' which financed a guaranteed; minimum price scheme for potatoes which were surplus to requirements.

That ■ scheme was done away with as a result of grower pressure.

Mr Wright said that North. Island growers did not like paying a main crop levy to provide money for paying out on a surplus that always occurred in the South Island, and a big percentage of South Island growers, too, were opposed to the scheme preferring a return to an open market situation. The.compensation scheme, he said, was stated to be encouraging the growing of too many potatoes, and in some cases it was said to be keeping good quality potatoes off the market and encouraging the sale of smaller and poorer quality potatoes because they were not eligible for compensation.

To keep poorer quality potatoes off the< market, the board had introduced a stock feed scheme under which a subsidy was paid on sales for feed.

Since the compensation scheme had been abandoned, Mr Wright said that there had not been a big carryover of potatoes, though at times there had been a sufficiently large supply to depress prices. However, over this period there had been an increasing volume of exports to Fiji, and the Pacific Islands, with the result that when prices dropped

more potatoes went to the islands and in 1977 this trade was worth $3 million and in 1979 in excess of $2 million. While there was a tendancy for the islands to buy from Australia when prices were low there, New Zealand had still been able to sell a lot of potatoes in that market.

Looking to the future, Mr Wright believes that the industry will see better varieties with improved cooking quality and he holds that there is still room for further improvement in the quality and presentation of the end product. He does not believe that there are likely, however, to be large opportunities for the .export of fresh or processed products, although New Zealand has the ability to produce large quantities of potatoes.

Shipping costs and the availability of suitable markets ■ are against major exports of the fresh product, he believes. The board had sought to> get potatoes into Singapore,. Ceylon and South Africa, but! their investigations had not! materialised in anything positive.

In the East, Mr Wright said there was a preference for yellow-fleshed potatoes but it had not been possible to grow these successfully here and the market in that part of the world was highly) competitive. Mr-Wright said that there had been a swing to processing of potatoes and it seemed sensible that if exports were made they should be in processed form, but he did not think that there were likely to be exports of processed potatoes in large quantities in the near future either, unless new opportunities opened up. The board, he said, was in contact with markets all of the time. The board has inherited from the old compensation scheme a fund of about $600,000, which Mr Wright said it was still holding. It was supposed to . have been set aside for a specific purpose, but he was opposed to that and believed that the board should be 'in control of. its own finances. While the board did not get involved in marketing or price control; he said that it did keep an eye on supplies and prices with three liaison officers — one full-time and two part-time — liaising with growers and keeping an eye on markets mainly in New Zealand.

One of the responsibilities of the board now is the inspection of tubers in the. seed certification scheme. This was taken over from the Ministry of Agriculture about four years ago. After his retirement from the board Mr Wright will still have plenty of activities to keep him occupied. He is still chairman of the local Malvern County Council, a position he has held for about five years, and is a member of the Canterbury United Council, the Lyttelton Harbour Board and the general committee of the Canterbury Agricultural and Pastoral Association.

Flying is one of his recreations. He owns a Piper Cub. His son also flies. He is also interested in old. cars, of which he has four — a 1923 Maxwell, 1929 and 1952 Bentleys and a 1931 Rolls Royce. The latter is mainly in demand for weddings. For five years he was also president of the Waimakariri Gorge Golf Club.

Soon after giving up his responsibilities with the Potato Board he will be leaving, with his wife, for a trip overseas.