Ministry of marketing for produce wanted

Press, 10 December 1983, Page 35

Ministry of marketing for produce wanted

PA Wellington The Labour Party wants a Ministry of trade and marketing formed to help avoid surpluses of agricultural produce. The party’s spokesmen on marketing and horticulture, Mr M. K. Moore and Mr R. K. Maxwell, said there was no marketing strategy to go with rapidly increasing agricultural and horticultural production. By 1990 apple production would rise to 231,000 tonnes compared with this year’s 100,000 tonnes; 70,000 tonnes of onions would be grown

compared with 48,000 tonnes last year; and 265,000 tonnes of kiwifruit would be available compared with the 36,000 tonnes exported this year. As well, there would be an estimated 47 million litres of unsold wine next year and blackcurrant production was expected to double within seven years, they said. “The Government has given clear signals to the market place to move into horticultural products. This is good. The investors have responded magnificently.

“However, there is no clear marketing strategy at the end of the day. New Zealand has mastered the problems of production but where will these products be sold,” Messrs Moore and Maxwell said. “When you build a road you first have a destination in mind, you survey the landscape, then you build. “A Ministry of trade and marketing must be established to work through these sector plans from production to marketing.”