N.Z. WHEAT SHORTAGE

Grey River Argus, 15 March 1940, Page 8

N.Z. WHEAT SHORTAGE

PART OF CROP Appears to Have Vanished ! [Per Press Association.] CHRISTCHURCH, March 14 It appears that part of the 1940 New Zealand wheat crop has vanished. The area is known and with the yield somewhere near the estimate of 33 bushels to the acre, there should be plenty of wheat, buL according to members of the Wheat x Research Institute to-day, the wheat is simply not there. “The question is whether the crop is here or not- here,” said Mr R. J. Lyon. “All of the farmers whom 1 have spoken to say that the average will be about the 33 bushels per acre estimated, but nobody seems to know where the crop has got to.” There was a growing opinion that the wheat was not there, said Mr Lyon. The area and the yield should give enough wheat for New Zealand requirements. The South Island mills would probably get their full supplies, if they had not got them already, but the quantity that had gone to the North Island was very small, and it was a question of whether there would be enough wheat. Mr G. Fleetwood said that the farmers did not seem to be holding back any wheat for the increment in June. Only isolated farmers were holding wheat for the July increment. The general opinion among merchants was that the wheat was not there.

Australian Wheat APPARENT RECORD YIELD. SYDNEY, February 28. According to figures furnished to the Australian Wheat. Board by licensed receivers, the present wheat crop is a record for Australia. The quantity delivered to brokers to date, said Mr McPherson, the chairman. is 193,304,000 bushels, and it was estimated that the total would be not less than 195,000,000 bushels. Assuming that 20,000,000 bushels were retained on farms, the crop must have yielded 215,000 000 bushels, or slightly more than the previous record of 214.000,000 bushels in 1932-33. This latest estimate shows a tremendous increase on earlier official estimates. The first was that the harvest would be 153,000,000 bushels; then the total was pushed to 185,000,000, and next to 210,000,000 before tiiis final and apparently authentic return. No one has attempted to give a reason for the jump from the early to the latest estimates, but probably it is due partly to extreme official wartime conservatism and partly to rain in nearly all the wheat belts a month or so before harvesting filling out grain and saving crops which had been written off. The latest estimates for each Stale are: New South Wales, 77,500,000 bushels; Victoria, 47,500,000; Queensland. 7,000.000; South Australia, 41.000,000; Western Australia, 42,500-, 000; Tasmania, 300,000; Australian Capital Territory, 50,000. The Australian Wheat Board expects a carry-over of 60,000,000 bushels from the exportable surplus of 170 - 000,GOO.