Govt announces once-only wheat harvest payment

Press, 24 July 1987, Page 2

Govt announces once-only wheat harvest payment

A once-only payment of $25 a tonne will be made to wheatgrowers for wheat harvested and sold in the 1986-87 season, the Government announced yesterday. Transitional assistance to the wheatgrowing industry was announced by the Minister of Trade and Industry, Mr Caygill, and the Minister of Agriculture, Mr Moyle, in view of the “severe liquidity problems” of many growers. This has been brought about by the deregulation of the wheat and flour industries and the collapse of world grain prices under the weight of subsidised over-produc-tion in northern hemisphere countries. The Emergency Protection Authority in May recommended that the Government pay a bounty on exports of wheat but this was rejected because of

possible difficulties for New Zealand’s international trading. “Discussions have continued with growers since that time with a view to finding some way of providing an acceptable form of transitional help,” said the Ministers. Now that a $25 a tonne once-only payment has been fixed, United Wheatgrowers has agreed to withdraw its complaint of dumping and subsidisation against Australian wheat. The Government has also agreed to review the financial situation of arable farmers in the transitional period and to facilitate the collection of producers’ levies on wheat.

The Government said the one-off payment was justified by the rapid adjustments growers had had to make this season

and by the fact that the arable sector had had no previous assistance from the Government.

The Ministry of Agriculture estimates that 336,000 tonnes of wheat were harvested this year which would mean a Government payout of $8.4 million.

The chairman of United Wheatgrowers, Mr Mervyn Gray, welcomed the Government’s decision to pay $25 a tonne on all wheat produced during the 1987 harvest. He said a recent recommendation by the Emergency Protection Authority had recognised that growers were suffering hardship.

Efforts by United Wheatgrowers to have duties imposed on imported wheat had been frustrated by legal action and deficiencies in the law, said Mr Gray.

Growers would now withdraw their complaints against imports for this season, he said, but would retain the right to take such action in future if necessary. "Growers must remember that they do not have any guarantees for next year and make plantings knowing that the wheat harvested will be sold into a completely free market with no more help from the Government,” he said.