THE MEAT PROBLEM

Dominion, Volume 34, Issue 157, 29 March 1941, Page 8

THE MEAT PROBLEM

Treatment Of Banned Stock AN IMMEDIATE POLICY During the past, week Dominion-wide concern' has been expressed at the- ban on the killing for export of all classes of live stock except lainbs, porkers and the best of beef. - Yesterday’s announcement of permission for baeouer killings relieves what was the most urgent and necessitous ease. The terms arranged for baeoners may be characterized as most generous. Still to be dealt with, however, are wethers and ewes, and also lower-grade cattle from the sheep farms together witn boner cows and bulls in their thousands from the dairy farms. The hold-up of killings of these classes of stock is of itself not at present of serjous consequence, I make this statement on the grounds that (1) the season is exceptionally good over the whole Dominion and in such plentiful feed conditions the car..rying of extra stock for a fgw weeks is of little serious inconvenience; and (2) the Government has given a clear promise to producers that their banned stock will be purchased, and as I interpret that promise—payments will be such as to return to producers the same values as would hare' been received for the stock under Conditions ruling before the ban. Problem of Treatment. . The Government so wills, but is up against the practical problem of handling the stock in an abnormal way. In fairness to the authorities it must be appreciated that there are considerable difficulties to be overcome. The plain fact :s that because of lack of boiling-down equipment our works are unable to cope with the huge numbers of stock which must now b? treated otherwise than in. customary fashion. And here let it be declared that 1 see nothing for such stock but that they oe boiled down. Further expansion of cool storage does not appeal as a practical measure, and if we should fill up any spare space with banned meats they will be only put in and then taken put again, for almost certain destruction, nine months hence. The banned stock must therefore be dealt with as “potters.” Only wethers have a chance of being treatea _ 'otherwise. Valuing Banned Stock.

I would suggest that at the earliest possible moment arrangements should be made between the Government and the freezing industry which will provide for stock going to the works, under the usual drafting conditions, because such stock must be killed and skinned and treated to the best advantage,; and that means treated at the works. It is suggested that carclises should' be weighed intact, and this weight (normal meat carcase together with offals, etc.) should be the basis for payment to the farmer. By simple tests a percentage could be worked out which would readily show what an given intact weight would represent of dressed carcase. Thus it might be that a 561 b. wether would weigh 70 or perhaps 841 b. intact. The proposal is that the works should pay the farmers on this weight at normal schedule rates and that the Government should pay the works as in the past, and that from the moment of killing the whole carcase becomes Government stock, the meat to be boiled down or otherwise disposed of, on its own 1 account, all' of a single process.. I view this as a subject for negotiation between the Government and the freezing Indus--try and one not of the farmers' special' concern. . Furthermore,.’ arrangements to this end should be made with all possible speed, for no matter how early a Start be made the treating of the banned Stock must extend over a j considerable period and I see little prospect of its be-' ing all' disposed of before the end of Juriw next.'.

■ Matters cannot be unduly -rushed, tor the Government has. a duty to taxpayers, aS well as to farmers, which necessitates obtaining from the meat banned the best possible returns. . So much for that which I view as the ’’immediate’problem.- In “Farming News” of next Saturday an article will deal with the /“long-term” problem, one for which I feel two-year planning is absolutely necessary.