1986 will be tough farm year — Crown

Press, 4 April 1985, Page 20

1986 will be tough farm year — Crown

Next year would be a difficult one for farmers and finance and debt servicing would be of major importance, the chairman and chief executive of Crown Corporation, Ltd, Sir Roderick Weir, said in Christchurch yesterday. The corporation includes the major stock and station agency, Dalgety Crown, and its board met in Christchurch this week. Farm inputs would increase about 30 per cent in price next year, he said, and the expected reduction in export lamb returns to farmers of $5 to $6 a head would flow right through the store-sheep market. “The Government’s policy of freeing up international trade and withdrawing subsidies, trying to make farmers more productive and profitable, will cause some problems in the short term with debt servicing for those at the bottom end,” he

said. “It matters a lot to people with less than 60 per cent equity in their farms,” he said and he predicted that farmland prices would come down further. The present corporation was formed by the merger late in 1983 of Dalgety New Zealand and Crown Consolidated. It employs 250 staff in Canterbury with over S2IM in assets, a turnover of SIO3M in the region and salaries and wages of S3M. Sir Roderick, at a lunch in Christchurch for representatives of local government, commerce, and agricultural organisations, presented a cheque to the Mayor, Sir Hamish Hay, for the Christchurch civic pride campaign. The donation to the “Love Beautiful Christchurch” campaign was made to mark the corporation’s first board meeting in the city.