MEAT INDUSTRY

Kaikoura Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 59, 31 July 1944, Page 2

MEAT INDUSTRY

ANNUAL REPORT OF THE BOARD. The annual report of the New Zealand Meat Producers’ Board contains the usual statistical details of the meat industry and a survey of the events of the year. The Board, it states, had many lengthy conferences with the Hon. W. Nash over the meat schedule prices which operated doiring the season now closing, and although the Government was emphatic that it would not depart from the principles of stabilisation, the Board succeeded in se- , curing adjustments of the opening schedule to remove two One anomaly was the bias in favour of lighter weight lambs, to the detriment of heavier weights, and the second was the lowering of the price of ewes to inability to export in frozen form at that time.

During the season the Board has kept the closest possible check on fat stock schedule prices, so as to ensure that increased skin values, by reaon of the growth of wool, were reflected in a rise in the schedule prices. In handling this job the Board prepares very exact costings, the basis of which entails a considerable amount of statistical work covering average carcase weights, wool pulls, etc. It will be readily recognised that factors such as these have an important bearing in regard to increases in scheduled prices.

When the Board believes that a rise in the schedule is warranted, the question at once becomes the subject of a conference between the meat operators axul the Board’s representatives, presided over by the Primary Industries Controller.

Under the present war conditions, wherein a schedule price is fixed for the whole of the North Island, and similarly one for the price of the whole of the South Island, it is inevitable that certain anomalies must occur, having regard to variations in skin values, average carcase weights, freezing charges, and other factors.

The Board strongly opposed the introduction of the Fat Stock Disposal Order, whereby the producer is required to sell his export stock to the same person to whom his stock was sold during the previous season—and the vendor is thus denied the right of selling to another operator if dissatisfied. As a partial safeguard, to offset this disability, the Board was insistent that the Order should include the right for any farmer (a) to sell by public auction, or (b) to arrange for killing his stock on his own account, under the provisions of Section 33 of the Meat Act, 1939. The report adds that so far the Fat Stock Disposal Order has not been revoked. The Board has always advocated healthy competition, and is just as emphatic to-day that there must be no variation in the facilities to the farmer to put his stock into the freezing works on owner’s account if he so desires.

It is mentioned that the Board approves of the principle of longterm planning, the report adding that discussions are still proceeding in London for the purchase by the United Kingof New Zealand’s exportable surplus of meat and dairy produce under a four-year contract. Mr N. S. McOumpha, of the Board’s London Office, has been appointed to the New Zealand delegation in an advisory capacity on the meat side.