NO IMPROVEMENT IN EGG SUPPLIES: RATIONING TO STAY

Grey River Argus, 21 March 1947, Page 7

NO IMPROVEMENT IN EGG SUPPLIES: RATIONING TO STAY

P.A. WELLINGTON, March 20. After considering the effects of the present fowl-feed situation, the PostWar Egg Marketing Committee is of the opinion that no greater quantities of eggs will be available this year. It recommends that egg rationing be continued.

This information (contained in a report which'the Committee made to the Minister of Agriculture, Hon. J. Roberts) was given this morning to the Dominion Conference of Registered Poultrykeepers. Because of the feed shortage, the Committee recommends that, in the interest of consumers, some form of subsidy should be continued,c-and that egg rationing should be continued in these times of shortage. The Committee suggests a guaranteed minimum price and a fixed maximum price, with flexibility for fixing the prices between these two points, as the best method in the meantime for returning to the producer a proper cost of production. It recommends that the control of egg marketing sho’uld be vested in a representative body consisting of four members elected by the poultry industry, and four to represent the Government and consumers, and with powers to appoint its own chairman, who would not have a casting vote. The Committee favoured the establishment in heavy egg-production areas of cool store facilities for the provision of an all-the-year-round supply of shell eggs. It also recommended that attention be given to modern pulping operations, and that eggs in shells should not be imported until the supplies of eggs were totally inadequate. The Director of Internal Marketing (Mr R. P. Fraser), explained that .the Committee had been set up to evolve an alternative marketing plan to the war-time Egg-Marketing Emergency Regulations. “The Committee did not have sufficient evidence to say that the production of eggs has gone down or remained the same”, said Mr Fraser, “but there is no evidence to show that the quantity ol eggs being utilised has gone down”.