Meat rendering Insulting’

Press, 14 June 1983, Page 7

Meat rendering Insulting’

The Minister of Agriculture, Mr Maclntyre, was asked by the Canterbury Trades Council yesterday to stop the Meat Board from continuing to render down export mutton into fertiliser.

The board, which has control of New Zealand’s export meat, decided last month to have about 1500 tonnes of last season’s mutton rendered into blood and bone meal because it was no longer up to export standard. The Trades Council tried to get the Government to make cheap export meat available late last year for Christmas dinners for the unemployed, arguing that large quantities of meat were still unsold in freezing works’ freezer chambers.

The council yesterday sent a telex to Mr Mac-

Intyre reminding him that at that time the Meat Board had advised the Government that it was confident that the total meat production could be disposed of overseas.

“They are now turning that meat into blood and bone. We think you as Minister should tell them to stop this immediately, because they are insulting every taxpayer in New Zealand who has supplied the supplementary minimum prices in their taxes to help farmers,” the telex said.

A spokesman for the Meat Board said yesterday that it was not a charitable agent but a business.

“The meat was produced for export. S.M.P.S have been paid and we have no authority to give it away,” said the spokesman.