GRADING OF WHEAT

Evening Post, Volume CXXIII, Issue 118, 20 May 1937, Page 5

GRADING OF WHEAT

PRACTICE OVERSEAS

SWEDJSH EXPERT'S ADVICE

(By Telegraph—Press Association.)

CHRISTCHUKCH, May 19.

The institution of a grading system for ; -the handling of wheat and the abolition of the quota system as it affects mills in New Zealand were points advocated by Mr. Sten Abdon, the eminent Swedish cereal chemist, who is at present in Christchurch.

For three weeks Mr. Abdon has bseti working in the city studying the Dominion's wheat, flour, and baking standards, and this morning in an interview he gave his observations on the results of his research.

"The wheat you have here is of average baking quality equivalent to average Australian ■ samples in normal years," said Mr. Abdon, "but when 'you get bad harvesting weather there is a high amount of sprouted wheat and deterioration in the baking quality. The present wheat handling system does not protect the miller, in v that he has to take the wheat whether it is sprouted or not,and has to pay the same price for it. That is not fair to the miller or to the baker.

"In other countries, indeed in most wheat-producing countries of the world, the wheat .grading system on a moisture base has been introduced and that means that the miller pays a fixed price for wheat of average moisture (bontent, say, 15.5 per cent., and then there is a premium for dry wheat and dockage for wheat above the average moisture ■ content."