GUARANTEED PRICE.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVII, Issue 198, 22 July 1937, Page 5

GUARANTEED PRICE.

FARMERS ASK FOR 1/6. SOUTH ISLAND REQUEST. Per Press Association. INVERCARGILL. July 21. The need for a substantial increase in the guaranteed price for dairy produce during the coming season in order to cover the increased costs of production and manufacture because of the Government’s recent legislation was mentioned by Mr G. R. Herron, chairman of the awards committee of the South Island Dairy Association, in an address to dairy factory suppliers at Edendalc, but he held out very little hope of the increase approaching that which has been claimed by various producers’ organisations. “I have seen computations by different producers’ representatives of the amount of the increase in the guaranteed price required to cover the increased costs re : suiting from the Government’s recent legislation, and most of them have been in the vicinity of threepence a pound butterfat,” he said. “When in Wellington recently I learned on reliable authority that we would be luckv to get a third of a penny, let alone threepence.” Mr John Johnston said that the Minister of Agriculture had dropped a hint at the South Island Dairy Conference that the increase would not be handsome. If the rise was only one-third of a, penny the producers would not get • rich on that.

The meting passed a resolution urging that payment to dairy farmers should lx? a minimum of Is 6d per pound bultcrfat or a price which wili enable dairy farmers to pay wages competitive with other industries.