Growers support seizing of wheat

Press, 5 February 1987, Page 2

Growers support seizing of wheat

Wheatgrowers support the seizing of Australian wheat by the Customs Department last week and allege that the Wheat Board has left growers in a very disadvantaged position in a deregulated industry, according to the chairman of United Wheatgrowers, Mr Mervyn Gray. He said yesterday that the board had been intending to supply Australian wheat to millers in Auckland and Mount Maunganui when there was no shortage in New Zealand and the importation would cause injury to domestic growers. “The wheat would have been used outside the period of regulation (which ended on Febru-

ary 1) when the board’s powers had disappeared,” said Mr Gray. “This wheat is believed to have a discounted pricing arrangement funded by the Wheat Board and this must ultimately be funded by the taxpayer. “Millers have refused to take up the balance of the 1986 New Zealand harvest wheat, preferring the soft arrangement with the Wheat Board on imports. “Millers have also used the threat of imports to pressure New Zealand growers into accepting prices that are not profitable and are much less than the cost of equivalent imported wheat when the dumping and subsidy component is taken into

account,” he said,

United Wheatgrowers did not want to stop the importation of Australian wheat for blending to make required grists if there was an undertaking by millers to use the New Zealand crop. Millers had been offered New Zealand wheat from this year’s harvest but had shown no inclination to negotiate.

The Customs Department seized a cargo of 5335 tonnes of Australian hard wheat in the vessel Ngahere at Auckland on January 29, three days before the Wheat Board’s powers of control over domestic wheat and flour and wheat imports were due to end.