IMPROVING BACONERS

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume 47, Issue 2664, 1 September 1937, Page 5

IMPROVING BACONERS

LEVY ON EXPORTED PORKERS FARMERS’ UNION DISCUSSION. A levy on pigs to be paid out on best quality baconers, a scheme introduced by the Pig Marketing Association, was discussed by the Northern Thames sub-provincial conference of the farmers’ union at Paeroa yesterday. The scheme received a mixed reception and it was referred to the constituent branches for further consideration, although some had already given attention to the proposal. Mr C. W. Schultz (Ngatea) supported the levy as it would tend to increase quality in the pigs raised, he contended. Farmers were improving pigs rapidly but they should not be “dragooned” into putting all their pigs on the hooks, declared Mr T. Considine (Netherton). The proposal was that one-sixteenth of the charges between the works and f.o.b. should be levied on all pigs and paid out on the highest quality baconers, explained the provincial president, Mr H. O. Mellsop. He strongly supported the levy. Market for Baconers. The porker quota from New Zealand to England to-day was nearly full, he claimed, but there was an unlimited ■ market for baconers. There were not enough prime baconers raised to sell them as New Zealand parcels. A committee of pig-breeders in Hamilton bad opposed the levy, stated the provincial secretary, Mr A. E. Robinson, and he agreed with their contention that to carry out the proposal would be uneconomic. The cost of the supplementary feed to raise baconers was too great considering the advantage to be gained. It would take money out of the pockets of one farmer and put it into another’s, and some more to the producers of the food. Mr Mellsop contended that first class baconers could be raised on skim milk and grass. Mr Robinson said he was against levying things and then asking the ; Government' to do things. (Hear, Hear). >; A motion that the levy proposal r should be supported was lost in favl our of an amendment that it should ! be referred to the branches.