BREAD AND WHEAT PRICES

Dominion, Volume 23, Issue 56, 29 November 1929, Page 13

BREAD AND WHEAT PRICES

Sir, —Your magazine section of Saturday, 16th, has an excerpt from the Christchurch “Times” which is interesting in many respects. We read, probably' for the first time, that the costs of bread are “after all of minor importance,” and that owing to the broadening of the national diet bread is taking a smaller place in the food bill of the average family, therefore the price of bread “is not now of overwhelming moment.” The writer of that article evidently does not think 5/- per head of all population is too high a subsidy to pay for the present methods of production. This question of bread costs is one for the whole community, and the politician of the future may have to deal with that.

The “particular interests in the North Island” to which the article refers, are presumably those of the poultry-farmers whose desire is to make a living out of their industry, which they are not doing now. It is imagination to suggest that “their claims have been met in part, by the way. in the recommendation that bran and pollard be admitted duty free, and the criticism has been singularly narrow in its scope.” The poultry farmers have avoided the question of milling wheat and its products and have asked nothing unreasonable (they have suggested a parity of cost in the North Island with prices in the south through importation which would usually entail an import duty). Bran has certainly been discussed. There are very few experienced men who pay the 30/- extra demanded for what is sold to-day as pollard; they find that when there is a shortage of bran there is plenty of pollard and the reverse when bran is plentiful. They (the poultry farmers) contend that their own industry is handicapped to ruination by the exclusive protection granted to wheat interests, and have asked for importation of fowl wheat duty free into the North Island, and have offered to forgo all subsidies on their exports in that arrangement. New Zealand wheat is protected to the extent of 1/3 per bushel, which is the cost of importation without duty. Sufficient surely for any purpose, more especially as fowl wheat to-day is costing more than milling -wheat. “The narrow scope of criticism” is probably due to the North Island poultry farmers being prime movers in this food question, forced upon them by the unfortunate condition of their own industry. Representations have been made to the Hon. Minister of Agriculture; and no doubt this question ot wheat interests is one result. The assertion that bread costs based on home-grown wheat are less expensive than from imported wheat and flour is surely open to question, when we take notice of the huge importations of milling wheat and flour with which our homegrown wheat is mixed so that a flour acceptable to the average baker, and to the consumer of bread, can be produced. If the home-grown wheat requires that addition it is improved by the quality of grain grown in other countries, its hardness and absence of moisture. It is accepted by the majority of bakers that Australian flour produces more bread per ton than New Zealand. Apart from the protection already given, and the claims put forward for the advantages of using New' Zealand wheat, it seems strange that scientific research is so necessary. One wonders whether the enormous added cost which the bread consumer pays is not altogether out of proportion to any advantages that may be gained. Such land as will grow 35 bushels of wheat to the acre is capable, of producing other commodities, and I fail to see why the export of fat lambs is not sound, particularly for those “who find sheep-raising more attractive than wheat-growing.” That is only average w’heat production land, and could I feel sure be made to do better than the 11 bags of grain it grows, in other avenues of farming. The present difficulty is the outcome of war periods and the desire to make this country self-supporting. Great Britain is importing all her wheat requirements and yet London can buy the 4-pound loaf for BJd. They have no sliding scales of duties, to protect such organisations as those in New. Zealand who control prices of wheat products. Meanwhile the poultry farmer needs to live; he has been reasonable in his asking, his criticism is not so much aimed at the wheatgrower as to the method and extent of the protection granted and he realizes the strength of other interests opnosed to him. To go further into this matter would occupy too much of your space. I am prompted in this by the desire to correct wrong impressions which may be created by the article referred to.—l am. etc.. PERCY JENNENS. Levin, November 19.