No Alternative To Dumping Potatoes In Over Supply

Gisborne Herald, Volume LXXV, Issue 22818, 13 December 1948, Page 6

No Alternative To Dumping Potatoes In Over Supply

(P.A.) WELLINGTON, Dec. 11. The arrival on the market of large quantities of new season’s potatoes had so limited the demand for the old ones that there was now no alternative to dumping the surplus, stated the Minister of Marketing, Mr. E. L. Cullen, referring to the dumping of surplus potatoes in the South Island. He added that before this was done the Marketing Department was prepared to give supplies to charitable and public institutions, and large quantities had already been donated to such bodies.

“The Marketing Department endeavours to contract for the estimated consumption of potatoes in New Zealand, and in a normal season 21,000 acres with an estimated yield of four and a half tons per acre is sufficient for the New Zealand market,” said Mr. Cullen. “In this last season the area under contract was only 19,300 acres which in a normal year would have resulted in a shortage. For this reason there was no alternative but to ask commercial and other growers to plant ‘another row . The Minister said that on account of the excellent growing season experienced the average yield rose to approximately six tons to the acre which was the equivalent of a further 0000 acres in a normal year. The Government had met its obligations to the growers and had made every effort to dispose of the surplus.

No market could be'found overseas and factory treatment in the only manner available, namely dehydration, •was too expensive to meet overseas competition and would have resulted only in further losses.