EXPORT MEAT

Dominion, Volume 37, Issue 221, 15 June 1944, Page 4

EXPORT MEAT

Production Improvement

Improvements in some phases'of the Dominion’s export meat production which were noted a fortnight ago by the New Zealand Meat Producers’ Board are again shown in its returns of export killings _to May 27. Wether production of 553.451 carcases is now within 29,000 of the killings at the corresponding date last season. Ewe mutton killings a fortnight ago were 14,000 carcases ahead of the previous season’s total and the improvement now exceeds 88,000. The decreased production of lambs this season, previously reported to be 1,059,000 carcases, has bc.cn lessened, the decline being 932,520 carcases.

Total killings to May 27, with the comparable figures f-v last season in parem theses, are as follows: —Lambs, 9,601.257 (10,534,077) ; wethers, 553,451 (552.G 49) ; ewes, 1,751,721 (1,663.007) ; beef (quarters). 258,816 (469.695)_: boneless beef (freight carcases), 435.074 (740,253); and bobby veal, 64,401 (77,733). Average killing weights to May 27 have been as follows:—Lambs—Dominion average 33.621 b. (33.541 b. North Island 32,751 b. (32.501 b. South Island 34.731 b. (34.751 b. Wethers—Dominion average 55.211 b. (54.481 b. North Island 55.i41h. (55.061 b. South Island 49.861 b. (49.10 The average weight of ewes is 52.761 b., compared with 54.591 b. in the preceding season. North Island 53.0911). (•'•‘■BUo.i and South Island 51.911 b. (01.b11b.1. It. is reported- by the board’s supervising graders that killings in the Auckland district. with the exception of beet, are slackening considerably. A dechne m beef killings is expected shortly in Taranaki and West Coast works, which are now dealing with the final rush of pigs. Beef has been coining in we 1 at Gisborne and in Hawke’s Bay. while the report from Manawatu and Wairarapa indicates fair lamb and mutton supplies, and a good deal of beef. The latter should continue for some weeks. It is expected that most South Island works will complete the season’s operations at the end of June, but Mataura and Makarewa pxpect to handle cattle till the end of July.

The winning of the D. 5.0.. for the fourth time by Captain Frederick John Walker. C. 8., R.N., is announced in tonight's London Gazette. A third bar to'the original order is awarded for outstanding leadership and skill and determination leading to the destruction of six U-boats in the Atlantic, the British Official Wireless announces.