Meat crisis likelihood rejected

Press, 12 November 1985, Page 2

Meat crisis likelihood rejected

Wellington reporter The Government yesterday rejected suggestions that the Meat Board’s decision to scrap the national sheepmeat pools on December 31 would create chaos.

The Minister of Agriculture, Mr Moyle, and the Minister of Overseas Trade, Mr Moore, said they wanted the pooling system ended but acknowledged that the decision would “move the process along a little faster than was initially anticipated.” They rejected Opposition claims that the effect of the six-week deadline would be to precipitate a crisis in the industry. Product processed between now and the end of the year would in most cases already have been committed to markets, they said.

They also gave an assurance that an orderly transition could and would be achieved within the new timetable and that they would do what they could to ensure minimal disruption. The chairman of Federated Farmers meat and wool section, Mr Bruce Anderson, was concerned that the change could only add to the uncertainties already upsetting the agricultural sector.

To that extent, he thought the board’s action was unfortunate but said it probably had little choice. It had been put in an impossible position, Mr Anderson said, by Governmental interference and by what he described as a campaign on the part of some companies to undermine its activities.