Egg-selling controls to go

Press, 12 October 1985, Page 8

Egg-selling controls to go

By OIIVER RIDDELL in Wellington Marketing controls on the egg industry will be abolished by the Government in February. Decisions by the Government on the future of the egg industry were announced yesterday by the Minister of Trade and Industry, Mr Caygill, and the Minister of Agriculture, Mr Moyle. This follows up a review of the industry by the Industries Development Commission set up by the previous Government in May last year. The report of the review was released last February and the Government’s final decisions follow some months for public consideration and comment on the review.

The Government has made nine decisions, to take affect from February 1, 1986. They are: .© The entitlement system for the egg industry should remain but

it should be reviewed in 1988. © Entitlements should be completely transferrable, © The limit on the maximum individual holding of entitlement should be abolished. O Marketing controls and marketing areas should be abolished. ® Prices control on eggs should be retained in the meantime. © Import controls on eggs should be revoked. © Quarantine controls should stay. © Animal feed companies and egg-marketing agents should come within the ambit of the Commerce Act, 1975. • The composition of the Poultry Board should be reviewed in the light of its new function. The two Ministera said the egg industry had been highly regulated for many years. The regulations provided for the Poultry Board

to fix the number of birds farmed nationally and the number each individual producer was entitled to farm. It was mandatory for producers to pay a levy per bird farmed to the Poultry Board, to cover the cost of transfer and disposal of surplus egg production. Until 1978, producers had been able to expand their flocks only by buying entitlement from a producer leaving the industry. Since then the Poultry Board had been the sole producer of egg entitlements. Marketing and distribution of eggs and egg products had also been under the control of the Poultry Board.

The two Ministers said that over the years the Poultry Board had done a good job. However, there was still an expensive surplus of eggs each year, and there was a lack of flexibility in this regulatory system.

“It is now appropriate for the egg industry to be put on a more competitive footing,” they said. The commission and the Poultry Board had suggested changes to the regulated system so that egg B-ices could be reduced, owever, the Government did not have the power to

act unilaterally to reduce the price of eggs. The Poultry Board would be invited to consider its pricing structure for eggs, particularly in view of its own submission to the Government that the price oi eggs could be reduced immediately by 7c a dozen, the two Ministers said.