MEAT AND WOOL

Evening Post, Volume CXXX, Issue 58, 5 September 1940, Page 14

MEAT AND WOOL

THE YEAR REVIEWED

FUTURE OF THE MARKET

"Evening Post," September 5.

"The past season has, on the whole, been a fairly remunerative one for the farmers throughout the Dominion," report Pyne, Gould, Guinness, Christchurch. "Prices for wool, meat, and dairy produce were at a higher level than those ruling during the previous season. Unfortunately, these higher prices were not translated into an equivalent increase in the net return to farmers. In many cases they meant little more than the increased cost of farming operations and in the case of some high-country sheep properties the increased gross returns were insufficient to enable all costs to be met." A case is stated for the protection of the sheep farmer. Canterbury farmers experienced a severe winter and the Canterbury clip was not up to its usual standard production being 10 to 15 per cent, less than for the 1938-39 season, back-country crops being most affected. The 1939-40 average price realised was £16 18s 8d per bale, compared with £12 13s for 1938-39. Prices paid for mutton and lamb under Government purchase were on the whole above market values in the preceding year and have given "general satisfaction," but for beef and some other classes of meat were "less satisfactory." , , As to the future of the wool market the firm regards it as "presumptuous for us to expound our views on world consumption and price tendencies after the close of hostilities." But it- believes that "with French and Belgium wool consumption nullified, we may expect the British Wool Control to lower export issue prices and increase the domestic quota.' Stress is laid on the high importance of growers properly skirting their wools at the shed tables.