GROWING OF WHEAT

Dominion, Volume 24, Issue 48, 20 November 1930, Page 10

GROWING OF WHEAT

Prices in New Zealand

POSITION ANALYSED “Wheat farmers cannot expect to escape the fall in world prices which the grazier and the dairy farmer have had to face,” said the president, Hon. T. Shailer Weston, M.L.C., in his address fit the annual meeting of the New Zealand Employers’ Federation yesterday. Mr. Weston was of opinion that New Zealand should be self-supporting in respect to wheat. “Personally I believe that' New Zealand should be self-supporting as regards wheat,” said Mr. Weston. “This has necessitated protection. _ The method adopted was to fix a basic price which Parliament considered wheat farmers should receive and to impose protective duties increasing proportionately with the decrease in prices outside New Zealand below that basic price.. That basic price was fixed at 6/9, being 1/3 over 5/6, which was then considered likely to be a fair average standard price of ■wheat at the world ports of export outside New Zealand. Now, however, world prices of wheat have fallen well below 5/6 per bushel. “The present price may advance, but. if, say, 4/- and not 5/6 should become the fair standard worid price for wheat at ports of export, then it will be necessary for the present price of wheat in New Zealand under the protective tariff to be fixed at 1/3 plus 4/- and not 1/3 plus 5/6,” Mr. Weston continued. “Wheat farmers cannot ‘expect to escape the fall in worid prices which the grazier and the dairy farmer have had to face'. Moreover, a reduction in the price for wheat, in New Zealand, as also a reduction in the price of meat and dairy produce, will assist that’ fall in the cost of living re-, quired to facilitate the reduction of money wages. There is this also to consider: already the competition between wheat’ farmers in New Zealand is reducing the pried 1 of wheat below 6/9 per bushel, the protected price for New Zealand wheat. The market price is now a little over 6/-. ' . “If, however, wheat prices in New Zealand are to be maintained while the prices of all other farm products fall heavily, so many farmers will be induced to grow wheat that the price in .New Zealand will be. soon forced down by internal competition well below the protected price,” Mr. Weston concluded. "This of course might take one or perhaps two seasons to bring about, but it would give rise to many complications and in the long run the wheat farmers might be well advised to acquiesce in any necessary adjustment required next year after present crops have been harvested than to face an indiscriminate rush by ail and sundry to grow wheat.”