Interest rates

Press, 2 June 1989, Page 8

Interest rates

Sir, —My congratulations to G. A. Inch (May 25) for his letter on interest rates. For 65 years I have lived and farmed in the high country of Otago and Canterbury. Past experience has shown me that a hazard of some sort strikes the man winning a survival from farming the land once in every four years and possibly the banking institutions every 13 to 15 years. These crises in farming, when they come in successive years, such as the past two years of drought, invariably force the farmer to borrow money. There are lesser predators, such as grass grub, blue-green aphids wiping out his lucerne stands, footrot or a killer kea attacking his sheep when they are snowbound. A labour strike, a severe rainstorm killing his newly shorn hoggets, and a slump in wool prices at the sale of his clip are among the hazards that the farmer contends with. The late Lord Asquith said that no one nation can live at the expense of another, nor can any one man. Are not high interest rates doing to 10,000 farmers and families in stress exactly what Lord Asquith said should not be allowed? —Yours, etc., A. C. SHAND. May 30, 1989.