WHEAT AND BREAD

Evening Post, Volume CI, Issue 17, 20 January 1921, Page 6

WHEAT AND BREAD

An important meeting was held in Christchurch yesterday between wheat farmers and the Minister for Agriculture (Hon. W. Nosworthy). The business of that meeting was the discussion of the price to be paid for wheat of the 1921----22 harvest. Farmers are among the first to clamour for the lifting of Government control of prices for their produce, "but the Christchurch meeting furnished a notable exception to the rule. Mr. J. Talbot, of Timam, a leading representative of wheat growers, warned the Minister that if the Government abandoned control of "wheat" prices and gave producers a free market, then but very little wheat would be grown. If the present guarantee prices were continued, there would not be the slightest risk of over-production. The Minister admitted that if New Zealand farmers did not grow sufficient wheat, it would be a serious position for the country. He would undertake that if arrangements made with the Government were carried out a permanent protective duty could be imposed. He believed in free markets, and he wished to get baok to a protective duty. Why do the wheatl farmers, unlike other farmers, clamour for a continuance of Government control "of their produce? Evidently they see a fall in the price of wheat the world over synchronising with the collapse of the prices in. America. There they rose from an average of 97 cents per bushel in 1914 to 3.30 dollars in April, 1920, falling back-to less than 2.0 dollars before the

year closed.

The tendency of the world's wheat prices is downward. Recent quotations received here from Australia show a fall in the price of flour for export; and both American and Canadian exporters of flour are anxious to sell in New Zealand. Australia, under control, has a .difference ii*-price for home consumption and export, being 9s per bushel for domestic requirements and 10s ,6d for export. This is an advance of 4s 3d per bushel, in order to stimulate production, on prices ruling this time last year. It is a heavy premium to pay in order tfiat the wheat grower may keep his silos full. Whatever may be the reasons, there is no burking the fact that, even with steady uplifting of prices for wheat, the New Zealand grower has been growing less of it, and growing considerably below the country's requirements. The estimated area in wheat this year was 214,000 acres, or roughly 73,000 acres more than in 1919-20; but wheat production has been steadily falling' since 1900. There was a slight rise in 1905, and again in 1910, but the fluctuations have been violent ever since, too erratic altogether for auch an important article of food as wheat. If the Government pro.poses to still further encourage farmers to |row wheat by making its importation and that of flour practically impossible, then the people should be taken into its confidence. Jf special inducements are to be given to New Zealand growers to produce wheat, the Government, should fully explain why these concessions to the industry should be made. ,