Wheat quality needs attention: Templeton

Press, 18 March 1983, Page 23

Wheat quality needs attention: Templeton

The quality section of the Wheat 82 competition, although it took a minor role to the highest net profit section, is nonetheless very important for the future of New Zealand wheat growing.

At the presentation of the Wheat 82 prizes, the Minister of Trade and Industry, Mr Templeton, and a miller and member of the Wheat Board, Mr J. T. Gould, emphasised the importance of quality for wheatgrowers, especially under a Closer Economic Relationship with Australia. “Access for Australian flour to the New' Zealand market will be limited in the initial years of C.E.R.,” said Mr Templeton. “By 1995, however, all quantitative limitations will have been lifted, so all producers, primary and secondary, have to pay full attention to what the market, that is the buyer, requires. “Imports will be subject to demand by New Zealand flour users.

“With some possible exceptions, demand will depend on comparisions of the a4quality and prices of the Australian and New Zealand products. “I understand that at present the landed cost of Australian flour would exceed the price of New Zealand flour.

“We can compete with the Australians but we have to gear up to do it,” he said. He said that he believed most imports of flour will be speciality lines and that the bulk demand for breadmaking will continue to be supplied by New Zealand mills. Growers must have profitability and this was most likely by growing a cultivar which gave ah adequate yield. • “But above all else, concentrate on quality, because wheat must provide flour of thequality, required by the user,” said Mr Templeton. . Later Mr Templeton presented the. prize for quality to Mr Hugh Horn, of Oxford, who was runner-up in the net profit section of the competition. Mr Horn had a quality points score 'of 106.83, second was \Mr Anthony Pannett (winner of the major competition) with 106.30 and third Mr John Morris, with 105.03.

The points were calculated under a formula devised by Dr R. Cawley, of the Wheat Research Institute. He said that the formula reflected the balance of quality aspects thought important by the milling and baking industries.

From a one kilogram sample frdm each competitor’s plot was determined a baking score, protein percentage by weight, and average kernel weight. The baking score and protein percentage were multiplied by two, the average kernel weight was added and then the screenings percentage subtracted to give the final points score. Mr Horn’s plot had a baking score of 24, protein count of 12.4 per cent, ker-

nel weight of 39.2 mg and a screenings percentage of 5.17.

Mr Pannett’s wheat had a baking score of 23, a protein level of 10.6 per cent, a kernel weight of 43.1 mg and screenings of 4.0 per cent.

Mr Morris had a baking score of 22, protein level of 10.9 per cent, kernel weight of 43.8 mg and screenings of 4.57 per cent.

All three competitors grew Rongotea wheat and the only two competitors who grew Oroua wheat came at the bottom of the quality section of Wheat 82. Meanwhile a Lincoln College researcher has said that payment of growers for quality is one of the big gaps in the New Zealand wheat selling industry which must be filled.

The suggestion is contained in a discussion paper from the Agricultural Economics Research Unit called “Quality in New Zealand Wheat and Flour Markets” by Mr M. M. Rich. Other suggestions made by Mr Rich, which he says would bring “existing standards closer to the qualities required in the market” are:

• Animal feed contracts. •An industrial flour category. • A Lower flour extraction rate.

Now that New Zealand wheat prices at the farm gate are linked to world prices, millers and bakers are advocating more forcefully quality improvements, according to Mr Rich’s paper. The Agricultural Economics Research Unit has produced annual national of the wheat industry for the last six years as well as conducting research into consumer attitudes to bread, distribution of wheat and flour and wheat pricing. Mr Hich repeats the major elements of a scheme for milling grade protein payments put forward in 1981 by Dr Cawley, who was then director of the Wheat Research Institute.

Dr Cawley had suggested that a common incremental protein payment be applied to the different milling grade farm variety prices. These protein payments would self-balance so that total Wheat Board payments would be the same both with and without the increments. Two grower payments would be made: an immediate payment based on an initial basic variety price, and an end of season payment based on the protein level of the individual crop relative to the average protein level found in that particular variety in that particular season. “More research is needed to quantify how growers in various regions would respond to different incremental payments, both for variety and protein,” said Mr Rich. “Results of such research would assist.in the identifying of minimum price increments needed to cause a change in variety and growing management practices

so as to bring about a significant improvement in wheat protein supply.”