Wheat Marketing

Dominion, Volume 27, Issue 32, 1 November 1933, Page 11

Wheat Marketing

Sir, —What have the Wheat Marketing Board and the New Zealand wheatgrowers to say regarding the following extract of a letter received from London, and dated September 21’, 1933?:—“F0r 631 b Argentine wheat, 20/6 c.i.f. per 480 lb c.i.f. has been accepted this week and there is New Zealand wheat in the port in barge which cannot be sold, only a. small quantity having found buyers at 22/- c.i.f. Australian is not worth more than about 23/9, but there is keen competition of other white wheats, including German, beside the choice English selling at reasonable prices.” It is easily reckoned, therefore, that bur wheat, which is not saleable readily at 22/- c.i.f. London per 4801 b, is equal to 2/9 bushel of 601 b c.i.f. Taking freight and other charges off (probably, say, Od bushel), the “reservation” scheme of the Wheat Marketing Pool in New Zealand is going to face a tremendous loss which ultimately falls on the farmers in the Dominion. The sooner we have a free market for our wheat, and allow the “free” mills to have the same chance of securing their milling wheat on an open market, the better it will be. Prices will be cheaper for poultry farmers and other users also of offals and thus allow larger ultimate export of what these latter two industries produce. Flour would be cheaper and thus'bring about a lower price of bread, and so help reduce the cost of living. The sum of 2/- per bushel is just about the sum which will be netted to farmers in connection with the thousands of bushels of wheat exported Home some little while ago. Just imagine the loss now to be faced, whereas had a more reasonable level of prices been fixed upon at the outset of the 1933 season by even 1/- to 1/6 per bushel lower for milling wheat and consequently a lower price for fowl wheat, there would have been a far bigger consumption in New Zealand. What is now goiiig to be done with the at least 500,006 oiTmore bushels of wheat which may have to be carried over into the 1934 season?—l am, etc., WATCHDOG. Wellington, October 31.