Pork industry urged to curb production

Press, 9 July 1986, Page 26

Pork industry urged to curb production

PA Auckland The Under-Secretary of Agriculture, Mr Butcher, has urged the pork industry to curb pigmeat supplies on the domestic market.

Opening the industry conference in Auckland, he said substantial increases in pig production over the last two years made the marketing of the extra meat at satisfac-

tory prices to the farmer difficult. Mr Butcher said it was generally accepted that production should not be expanded to the point where it became impossible to improve the schedules and the squeeze on incomes forced more and more producers to leave the industry. The chairman of the Pork Industry Board, Mr Denis Lepper, said producers were threatened beyond the farm gate by high costs of feed grains, freight, killing fees, processing costs and the continual threat of strikes. Processing costs and efficiencies were hard to assess, he said, but the industry was now receiving about 33 per cent of the retail value of its bacon pigs. Twenty years ago it got 53 per cent.

“Nowhere else do the users of services have to put up with these conditions,” said Mr Lepper. ”In no other part of the economy do they receive a diminishing return and continue to receive diminishing service for their investment.”