FRUIT GROWING INDUSTRY

Evening Star, Issue 21518, 16 September 1933, Page 10

FRUIT GROWING INDUSTRY

PROTECTION ASKED BY GROWERS REPRESENTATIONS TO TARIFF COMMISSION Protection for the fruitgrowing industry was sought before the Tariff Commission yesterday afternoon. J. B. Gilmour, president of the Teviot Fruitgrowers’ Association, said he wished, as a fruitgrower, to request that in any revision of the tariff as affecting the canning industry the interests of fruitgrowers be recognised and safeguarded. The two industries were interdependent, and any reduction of the present tariff on canned fruit would certainly result in fruitgrowing becoming quite impossible. He need not enlarge on the value of fruitgrowing as a primary industry. It would be sufficient to say that it offered unique possibility in the way of closer settlement, and the employment of a large amount of permanent and casual labour on comparatively small holdings. Allied industries were case making, packing materials, and spraying requisites. It was estimated that there were 1,500 persons totally dependent on fruitgrowing and 750 in casual work. There were approximately 3,000 acres of orchards in Otago. The average, over a period of the past four years, of fruit carried by the railways amounted to 10,109 tons per year. The quantity of apricots alone, based on a conservative estimate of £wo bushels per tree, was 134,200 bushels, and of peaches 89,466 bushels. The market value last year, which was a very bad one, of the yield of apricots and peaches was approximately £67,100. This province was the home of apricot growing in particular, and the quality was unsurpassed in the world. Under the climatic conditions obtaining in Otago the apricot was the least troublesome of all fruits to grow as it enjoyed comparative immunity from the ravages of brown rot and silver blight, while apricots were consigned to all markets from Auckland to the Bluff. Production to-day bad assumed such large proportions that they had to look to the canning factories to regulate distribution and avoid glutted fresh fruit markets. It was quite certain that any curtailment of the operations of the factories would have a most disastrous effect on the stone fruit industry. Edgar Francis Lord (Dunedin Jam Company) supported the_ application of Mr Gilmour for a retention of the present duties on canned fruits and jam and fruit pulps. He stated that the apricots grown in Central Otago were eminently suitable for canning purposes and for jam. He was speaking for the Dunedin Jam Company as a practical canner and preserver. From the appearance and the condition of the fruit on its arrival in Dunedin he should say that the growers ivere producing an article equal to that grown in Australia. The fruit was clean and of good texture and size. The extensive thinning which whs carried out generally had a great bearing on the size of the fruit. Central Otago was very suitable for growing apricots.of canning quality, the situation and climate being favourable, which was not the case further north in the dominion, as climatic conditions encountered there were against the production of first quality apricots. Central Otago was capable of taking care of the apricot requirements of the dominion. SEED POCKETS. G. A. Skene (chairman) and E. D. Smyth (secretary) of the Dunedin Horticultural Seed Merchants’ Association, asked for the removal of the duty on imported seed pockets not illustrated, which were at present subject to 30 per cent, ciuty. As an alternative, they suggested the imposition of a duty on filled pockets with seed for the retail trade, because Idled pockets from overseas were admitted free, whether they were contained in an illustrated pocket or a non-illustrated pocket. The application, Mr Smyth added, was based on a desire to be able to meet competition on an equal basis, and there was no desire to penalise the seed; it was the pocket non-illustrated which was the basis of the protest. The commission will sit_ again on Monday morning, when evidence will be hoard from the printing trade.