S.I. beef exporters agree to cut price to farmers

Press, 9 March 1982, Page 2

S.I. beef exporters agree to cut price to farmers

South Island beef exporting companies will reduce export beef schedule prices, to farmers by between 8c and 14c a kilogram. The exporters said yesterday that the reduction had been agreed to unanimously. The Minister of Agriculture (Mr Maclntyre) has responded to the move, advising beef farmers to refrain from offering stock for sale if they belived prices were too low. The exporters said that processing charges in the South Island were more than 20 per cent higher than in the North Island, largely as a result of industry competition in the North Island in the wake of the Government’s delicensing of the meat industry. South Island exporters asked the Government recently to raise supplementary minimum prices for beef to reflect higher killing charges in the south. Mr Maclntyre said that in taking a decision not to accede to this request the

Government noted that the South Island had a surplus beef-killing capacity which had given rise to killing charges above those in the rest of New Zealand. The South Island'exporters have reduced their schedule payments by 8c a kilogram for prime beef, including the manufacturing LI grade, by 14c for manufacturing L2 and M grades, and by 8c for the bull grade. The Government supplements remain unchanged on 11c a kilogram for prime, 24c for manufacturing, and 9c for bull. “Full advantage of lower South Island processing rates was taken when calculating South Island mutton and lamb schedules,” it said. “You cannot apply one principle to mutton and lamb schedules and another principle to beef schedules. “Exporters are not prepared — nor should they be expected — to go on incurring losses .by being forced to pay a schedule based on

Auckland Farmers’ Freezing Co-op rates where the levels of beef througput bear no relation to the South Island scene,” said the statement. South Island beef processors include Waitaki N.Z. Refrigerating, Ltd, Borthwick C.W.S., Ltd, Canterbury Frozen Meat Company, Ltd, Southland Frozen Meat and Produce Export Company, Ltd, Alliance Freezing Company, Ltd, Aotearoa Meat, Ltd, Primary Producers Co-op Society,

Ltd, and W. and R. Fletcher (N.Z.), Ltd. These companies are killing beef at 11. South Island freezing works: Nelson, Kokiri, Belfast, Islington, Pareora, Pukeuri, Burnside, Finnegan, Mataura, Makarewa, and Ocean Beach. If farmers take Mr MacIntyre’s advice and withdraw export cattle from these works then local and regional slaughterhouses could benefit from increased beef supplies.