FRUIT INDUSTRY

Evening Post, Volume CXXVII, Issue 132, 7 June 1939, Page 18

FRUIT INDUSTRY

MARKETING SCHEME

COMMITTEE APPOINTED

A committee to investigate all questions relating to fruit marketing has been appointed by the Government. The announcement was made last night by the Minister of Agriculture (the Hon. W. L. Martin), who said this action, had been taken in response to a request from the industry to the Government for centralised marketing and stabilised prices. The committee is:— The Minister of Agriculture,, chairman. Mr. F. R. Picot, Director of Internal Marketing, deputy chairman. Mr. T. C. Brash, president Fruit- | growers' Federation. Mr. W. M. Benzies, secretary Fruit Export Control Boai'd. Mr. E. J. Fawcett, Assistant Director of Agriculture. Mr. C. F. Skinner, M.P. for Motueka. Dr. W. B. Sutch, economist. Mr. J. E. Thomas, fruit officer of the Internal Marketing Division. Mr. Martin said that the committee would examine every aspect of fruit marketing from the orchard to the consumer, both in New Zealand and overseas. This was necessary in order to see that, if the Government provided the facilities asked for, these would be such as to be effective in giving the producer a reasonable standard of living and ensuring that the consumer was served as efficiently as possible. This would entail the taking I of evidence and a thorough- examination of the functions performed by all intermediaries between the producer and consumer.

The committee would be taking evidence mainly in Wellington and possibly in other parts of the country, and would call evidence from the recognised fruit growers' associations as well as individual people with expert knowledge of the different aspects of marketing.