GUARANTEED PRICES

Evening Post, Volume CXXI, Issue 138, 12 June 1936, Page 10

GUARANTEED PRICES

OPERATION OF SCHEME INFORMATION SOUGHT (Special to the "Evening Post.") NEW PLYMOUTH, This Day. The certainty of a payment of more than la a lb for butterfat for the past season's butter and cheese and a doubt whether the guaranteed price plan will return them as much for their produce as they would receive on the open markets through the Dairy Board are matters exercising the minds of many Taranaki dairy farmers, especially as it is thought that costs must go higher. The first of the annual meetings of companies in the province was held at Uruti yesterday, when it was reported that suppliers had received 11.02 d per lb for butterfat, the best price for five years, with the certainty of an additional Id to come. The slight decrease in production was more than offset, by the increase of 2Jd on the 9|d paid out in the previous season.

The chairman, Mr. W. B. Lawrence, said that the future looked particularly bright as far as prices on the British market were concerned, but whether the New Zealand producer would benefit by that nobody knew. He thought that for a time money would be plentiful, and if farmers put their houses in order they would be in a better position to meet any bad after-effects of the scheme.

Lack of knowledge of how payments would be made to the dairy farmer was a complaint made by suppliers. They wanted to know whether the Government intended to make a full payment each month or retain a proportion and pay the bonus later. It was essential that they should know in order to enable them to arrange their finance, they said.