Govt help to get out of farming?

Press, 24 April 1987, Page 3

Govt help to get out of farming?

PA Wellington Federated Farmers has taken the unusual step of asking the Government to help desperate farmers leave their land. The president, Mr Peter Elworthy, said that the federation wanted to help families who would otherwise face the indignity and heartbreak of a mortgagee sale, or who wantedto go but had no buyer for their land.

“We have put to the Government in the last 10 days a package to help those farm families who want, and need, to get out of farming,” he said. “They would go with dignity and with funds to re-establish.” A proportion of farms was not viable in any circumstances, Mr Elworthy said, because of size or geographical factors. “One of the things we are saying is that often there will be a neighbouring farmer who wishes to continue farming and whose own farm is marginally viable. “We believe there is room for the Government and the private sector to put together a package which will enable the family wishing to stay in agriculture to end up with a viable unit out of the two marginally viable farms.”

One way of doing that would be to extend the use of the debt-restructur-ing schemes.; The package would not be made public until the Minister of Agriculture, Mr Moyle, and officals had had a chance to discuss it.

The chairman of the Provincial Support Group, Mr Collis Blake, said he did not want to comment on the package, because he had not seen it. “But what I would prefer to see is some stability in the economy,” he said.