BEEF SHORTAGE

Greymouth Evening Star, 11 May 1929, Page 8

BEEF SHORTAGE

- —■ —«——— “BOBBY” VEAL SEQUEL. From the combined efforts of a prolific season and the depletion of herds last year, the North Island is at present experiencing an acute shortage of store cattle (says the Auckland “Star”). So great has been the shortage that “stores” have been selling at a premium, compared with fat stock, and the meat available for export has been seriously reduced in quantity. “The local market does not appear to be menaced to any great extent, but, as far* as one can see, there is practically no meat for export,” said the head of an Auckland firm this morning. He admitted the local consumption had been reduced by about ten per cent or possibly more. To the city resident, seasonal causes

Seem to account largely for the situation. The previous season was a backward one from the viewpoint of fattening, and a good one for prices. On the balance of advantages farmers generally came out well. With the suc- ■ culent pastures of the past summer and autumn there was a verdant landscape that contrasted strongly with the brown countryside of twelve months before. Farmers found themselves with more grazing land than they knew what to do with.' A demand for store cattle set in and high prices were paid. With the swing of the pendulum and the falling tendency of prices, these men who had bought at high rates were disinclined to sell and held back for a profit on their investment. SLAUGHTER OF CALVES. Another factor, and one of a more serious character, was that last year freezing companies killed more cattle than usual, and made heavy inroads , into the available supplies. The prices were attractive. Works round Auck-

land were active and killed heavily. This year there is a significant quietness. At the beginning of the last dairying season there was in the Waikato, and in other districts, a wholesale slaughter of young calves. About 50 per cent of the natural surplus of the country was at one Mme slaughtered by the farmer for various reasons. If the pig market was good he had not the feed for all his calves; and, if the beef market was poor there was not much inducement to save more than his farm could conveniently carry. Still, most farmers did their best to hold the bigger-framed, good coloured calves, to sell later on foi‘ grazing. Between July and December of the season just concluding about 275,000 calves were slaughtered in the dairying districts of Taranaki, Waikato and the

Wairarapa, an increase of at least 100,000 on the figures for the corresponding period of 1927. The slaughter of these “bobby” calves increased so considerably that numerous warnings as to the future were made, and it was recognised that farmers, were not completely in sympathy with the traffic. They were asked to send their calves in and buyers submitted the advantages of the sale of new-born calves, in advertisements and by direct canvass. The result was that big-framed, goodcoloured calves were killed off, and were not available to replace the natural kill of the freezing works and butchers. There was no doubt that the depredations made by the bobby veal operators seriously affected the future beef exports of New Zealand, and also that those works which were ordinarily busy

would be slacker in consequence until the herds were built up to their normal size ; or, alternatively, until steps were taken to control the killings. In the last three years the cattle herds have been reduced by the inroads of the new “bobby” veal industry. ■ The exporters of this veal, and cooperative concerns handling it asked the farmers to send in their godcl calves, and paid small preiums for them. This industry seems to have done much to deplete the herds of the country, states the representative of a large exporting firm. The industry, he submitted, had not found' in the new traffic a very productive source of profits and, in some cases, losses had resulted to those handling the veal. To show the serious inroads made into the store stock of New Zealand, the quantity of beef quarters shipped ,1 4-/-v i-t a-x 4-1 1 A 11 1 4-1»i o irnn i»

and m store until April lb this yeai was 100,198, against 349,046 for the same period of last year. The quantify of boneless beef and freight carcases was 137.342 carcases, compared with 227,763. The shortage is particular!} acute in North Auckland, and the high prices at Westfield suggest that, foi the last six months, there has been a shortage of fat stock for butchers’ requirements, Apart from the shortage of store stock, the prospects might' be considered very encouraging for the beef industry in the Dominion. There is, for instance, a high, price being paid for frozen beef in the United Kingdom • the world is experiencing a general shortage of beef supplies and Argentine, one of New Zealand’s keenest competitors in the overseas malrket, (records a decrease in beef killings last year of 24 per cent, compared with 1927.