PIG MEAT PRODUCTION

Evening Star, Issue 25895, 12 September 1946, Page 3

PIG MEAT PRODUCTION

BIG DROP IN REGENT YEARS (P.A.) WELLINGTON, Sept. 12. The slaughtering returns showed that the production of pig meats had fallen considerably over the past; four years, said the Superintendent of the Pig Industry of the Department of Agriculture, Mr H. M. Peirson. No effort had been spared to encourage production, he said, and prices were never better. Nevertheless pig killings had fallen off each year since 1941,. and were continuing to do so. The total killings in all export and rural slaughter houses and abbattoirs, and on farms in 1945. showed a big reduction, compared with the 1941 killings. “ This reduction in numbers does not, of course, tell the whole story,” said Mr Peix-son. “ The increase in number of heavy-weight pigs for bacon helped to maintain pig meats on a tonnage basis, so that while the numbers decreased alarmingly, the weight of pig meats, which reached 52,000 tons in 1941, fell only to 49.000 tons in 1945.” There was little doubt that some of the falling-off in production was because of the reduction in the number of cows milked. To _ achieve the 1946-47 programme of increased production of pig meat, killings would have to increase by 200,000 pigs. To assist in the drive for more pig meats the Government had decided to continue the crop subsidy scheme, and to consider an increase in the price schedule for pigs.