EGG PRICES

Dominion, Volume 34, Issue 136, 5 March 1941, Page 6

EGG PRICES

Question Of Exploitation

CASE FOR POULTRY - KEEPERS (To the Editor.) Sir,—l have, so far, refrained from entering Into the .controversy over the present price of eggs, but when the Minister of Marketing and Agriculture joins'into the fray to prevent exploitation of the public then, in justice to the hundreds of small poultry-keepers all oxer this country and whom I represent in varying' capacities, I feel bound to put their case before the consumer.

I can imagine their mixture of grief and amusement at any. suggestion that poultry-keepers could or do exploit anybody, even if they wanted to. Exploitation, forsooth I when they have their essential foodstuffs collared by another industry- Exploitation I when they have no say as to the price the public pay for the eggs they produce. Exploitation! when the price tribunal fixes the wholesale price that the poultry-keeper has ; to be content with and then allows the retailer to make the sky the limit in the price he asks the public to pay for them, Do they know, these consumers, that the price that they pay for eggs in the shops is in no way fixed by anybody? Does the Minister know that the producer is blamed for something-quite outside the producer’s control? If he does not know his head of the Marketing Department does know, because he has been repeatedly told during the last three years. Exploitation! when the price of foodstuffs in relation to costs of production is rated on port prices and for cash. Does the Minister know what the actual producer of eggs actually has to pay in the country where these eggs are produced? Does he know of the absolute impossibility of making poul-try-farnling pay under present conditions? These conditions may bp in part due to the war and may mean that we shall all have to go without eggs soon, but that the poultry-farmer exploits, anybody is one huge joke. ■ For years we have been telling the powers-that-be that it is impossible to, make an industry of egg production .if those who know the-job from the production side have no powers of organization. What is happening now has* come a little quicker tham we prognosticated, on account of the war; that.lsall that one can say. We are reaping where we have sown just a little earlier than would have been the case hard there been no war,

I, also, address you, the public concerned, the dear wife, the sweetheart, the mother, and even baby, born and unborn, and assure.you that eggs will get scarcer and, scarcer in the, future, because it simply does not pay to produce them under our present form of control. This may be just described as a sentimental appeal to the greatest number of voters, but exploitation, forsooth, when the Government made a profit of £lOO,OOO from the sale of wheat to the poultry-keeper last year and now cannot let him have pollard and bran—nbt, mark you, because of the war or a shortage of supply. There is as much pollard and bran made in this country today as ever there was, and probably more, but the poultry-far-mer cannot get it because someone else is getting it. Someone else who could easily have used some other foodstuffs, but pollard wars a bit cheaper. Let me repeat, poultry-keeping does not pay, and therefore the fowls, like their owners, are getting it in the neck. It’s just as simple as that. Finally, it will not get any better till those who. really do know something of the industry from the production side are made wore use of by those who so plainly know very little of this side of the business.

Oh, my, Exploitation! May I use that blessed word Mesopotamia?—l am, etc.. W, F. STENT. . ?> Carterton, ’March 4.