FARMERS’ DIFFICULTIES DISCUSSED AT INTERNATIONAL MEETING

Evening Star, Issue 26103, 17 May 1947, Page 8

FARMERS’ DIFFICULTIES DISCUSSED AT INTERNATIONAL MEETING

(From E. G. Webber, N.Z.P.A. Special Correspondent.) SCHEVENINGEN, May 15. The International Federation of Agricultural Producers’ Conference has uow settled down to committee work, and on the result of the next six days of its labours will largely depend whether the federation will fulfil the strong hopes of its supporters for its successful future. - The difficulties overshadowing that future are not overlooked by the 156 delegates and observers attending the conference, and representing 30 nations and six international organisations. One of the greatest, and one which only now is beginning to emerge into the open, is the difficulty of legislating for producers with such widely different standards of living as the peasant farmers of India, Burma, and parts of Europe, and farmers from countries like the United Kingdom, the United States. Canada, Australia,- and New Zealand. , _ Another problem which will plainly exercise the conference was that raised by the New Zealand delegate, Mr W. W. Mulholland, when he referred to the regulation of surpluses. The president, Mr James Turner, was immediately asked at his first Press conference whether this meant that the farmers considered they were entitled to regulate surpluses simply to keep up the prices of primary products, and irrespective of the world food situation. , Mr Turner endeavoured to pour oil bn the obviously troubled water by saying that this was the last thought in the farmers’ minds, and pointing out that the real danger of surpluses was that they caused automatic restriction of production, and inevitably led to shortages. WORLD WHEAT AGREEMENT. One very practical issue certain to be discussed in committee, aitd upon which the conference is expected to make a pronouncement, is the failure of the recent London negotiations for a world wheat agreement. The Canadians make no secret of their disappointment and. misgivings about this breakdown, which is regarded by many of the delegates at Scheveningen as a direct challenge to the world food policy of F-A.O. and Sir John Boyd Orr. Mr Turner, at a Press conference said he refused to apply the word breakdown to the London wheat negotiations. What had happened was only deferment. Tile conference, . while still in plenary session, admitted Burma, Finland, and Sweden to fall membership, but deferred the applications of the Peasant Federation of Hungary, Farmers’ Union of Kenya, and the Chinese National Farmers’ Organisation, in order that it might further examine the credentials of these organisations.