WHEAT AND FLOUR.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LX, Issue 218, 13 August 1940, Page 6

WHEAT AND FLOUR.

SATISFACTORY PROSPECTS. STOCKS BUILT UP. Per Press Association. CHRISTCHURCH, Aug. 12. “The wheat and flour supply of the Dominion is in a better position today than for several years,” said the Minister of Supply (Hon. D. G. Sullivan) to-day. “New Zealand uses about 5000 tons of wheat every week, but in spite of this heavy consumption stocks have been built up to such an extent that the country would carry on to the beginning of April, 1941, without touching any of the new harvest which begins in January. “Notwithstanding this, an additional quantity of Australian wheat has been arranged for, and this will ensure a heavier carryover than for several years ” So large an area had not been sown to wheat since 1933, Mr Sullivan said. It was estimated that 300,000 acres would be harvested in 1941. There was no saying wliat the yield would be, since that depended entirely on the weather between now and the harvest.

The average yield was about 32 bushels an acre, the Minister said, but in recent seasons it had varied from 24.49 bushels an acre in one year to 36.54 bushels in the next. It was for this reason, and because, although a sufficient acreage had been sown, no one would he bold enough to forecast the total yield of the harvest, that the Government had taken steps to make the position doubly sure by building up heavy carry-over stocks.

“Given a normal yield in 1941,” the Minister said, “the result should carry the country forward to May or June of 1942.”