$200M needed ‘to maintain production’

Press, 2 June 1982, Page 18

$200M needed ‘to maintain production’

PA . Auckland In spite of the $2BO million expected to be paid in Government support prices this season, New Zealand farmers need another $2OO million to maintain production at last year’s levels, Auckland farmers have been told. Addressing the annual conference of Auckland Federated Farmers, the director of the Meat and Wool Boards’ Economic Service, Mr Neil Taylor, said that farmers faced grave problems. Rising farm costs meant that they did not now earn enough to maintain production. ( “This is the second year in succession that this has occurred and must be viewed with real concern. On a total meat and wool industry basis, this shortfall represents some $2OO million in

investment funds, or almost $7500 in expenditure per farm,” said Mr Taylor. Although supplementary minimum price payments were expected to reach $4OO million by the end of the next season, that was only enough to hold incomes level with inflation. Farmers’ real net incomes were now the lowest since 1974, in spite of the S.M.P. payments, he said. "Unfortunately, the bulk of the problems facing the industry today are forced on.it from outside and are not internal to the industry,” said Mr Taylor. “Failure to ensure that the industry has access to suitable funds from either the market or elsewhere may well be an extremely costly error of judgment for the economy at large.”