VEGETABLE SUPPLIES

Evening Post, Volume CXL, Issue 59, 7 September 1945, Page 4

VEGETABLE SUPPLIES

GROWERS & COMPENSATION

The following comment was made yesterday by Mr. B. V. Cooksley, president of the Dominion Council of Commercial Gardeners, Limited, on the announcement by the Minister of Agn- j culture (Mr. Roberts) regarding the j supply of vegetables to the American forces. "The Minister's direction to growers to curtail planting as from December 31 and the arrangements for compensation implied in his statement are in line with the procedure previously outlined by his departmental officers to the industry, and we at all times had confidence in his assurance that growers would be given complete compensation for any abrupt termination of their contracts. "The industry now faces the necessity to adapt itself to the growing and supply of vegetables for.the New Zealand domestic market alone, after having- advanced its acreage and production capacity during the past few years approximately 50 per cent, beyond the pre-war level. "It is hoped that the Armed Services purchasing authorities will still require supplies harvested after Decomber and so enable this produce to be vised economically. It is also hoped that supplies harvested a.fter December which may be taken by the Government will not be placed indiscriminately on the domestic market in competition with the normal vegetables produced by commercial growers. The creation of such glut conditions would injure immeasurably the thousands of small growers in the Dominion of whom the industry is composed."