Govt assurances to farmers challenged

Press, 4 December 1985, Page 3

Govt assurances to farmers challenged

Government assurances that competent farmers will not be forced off their land were challenged last evening by the Opposition’s spokesman on agriculture, Mr lan McLean. He told a public meeting at Rangiora that the Prime Minister, Mr Lange, and the Minister of Agriculture, Mr Moyle, had become evasive about how they intended keeping to their commitment. Mr McLean said the best immediate help the Government could give farmers would be to bring down interest rates and the exchange rate by adopting a more moderate monetary policy. Export industries could not survive with an unrealistic exchange rate. Measures such as a reduction in the level of industrial protection or “band-aid policies” through the Rural Bank would not succeed if the exchange rate remained grossly over-valued, he said.

Foreign dumping of beef and dairy products on New Zealand’s markets also posed problems for the country’s farmers. Long-term changes needed in the meat industry were being held up by a rigid trade union structure. New Zealand farming need not be destroyed, Mr McLean said. The market prospects for the rest of the century looked reasonable. In spite of the problems of dumping, which might last a few more years, the demand for the sort of products New Zealand produced was expanding faster than the rate at which they could be supplied. “Our links with Europe and the United States must be restored. It is simply no use struggling to create new markets throughout the developing world if those markets are to be destroyed overnight by dumped produce.” Mr McLean was also concerned that the Government

was withdrawing the Reserve Bank backstop to producer boards’ floor price schemes. Without such backing, none of the boards could effectively run floor price schemes. New Zealand farms were very small businesses compared with the scale of the markets on which they sold their goods.