Beef in Short Supply and Dearer

Manawatu Times, Volume 68, Issue 223, 20 September 1943, Page 3

Beef in Short Supply and Dearer

For some weeks past the price of fat cattle has been steadily advancing until on Friday at Feilding it reached the highest price recorded for over twenty years. This position results from a very real shortage due to the heavy demands of the Services as well as the bad winter. Owing to unusually severe weather conditions farmers have been unable to keep up normal supplies of fat cattle let alone meet the extraordinary draw off on account of the requirements of the Armed Forces. The position respecting cattle on the East Coast has been disastrous owing to drought conditions in the Poverty Bay and Gisborne districts and while late autumn and early winter conditions on this coast were favourable for grazing there followed a very unfavourable change which has operated right through to the commencement of spring. Graziers have had a hard job in endeavouring to maintain normal commitments let alone meet the call for additional supplies and to-day many grown cattle in unfinished condition are being drafted to meet the acute shortage of beef which is being experienced throughout the North Island. {Supplementary fodder in many instances has been exhausted and the backward pastures due to the excessively wet weather and very cold conditions have combined to render it almost impossible to fatten off cattle in sufficient numbers to meet requirements. The Feilding market has thus witnessed very keen competition* whenever beef cattle have been advertised for the weekly sale and this competition, prompted by the local and outside demand, has caused prices to advance considerably. In face of such a combination of circumstances butchers are experiening difficulty in holding down retail prices. It is accepted that it costs considerably more to produce fat stock during the winter as against the summer when feed is normally plentiful but this season has witnessed a real shortage of all feeds. At Friday’s live stock sale in Feilding beef which has been selling up to 50s per lOOlbs. and over for some weeks, advanced to easily GOs per 100 lbs., a price which reflects the keen demand for supplies which were not satisfied with the offering yarded. More could have been sold had the cattle been available. Not since the boom period which followed the close of the Great War have prices risen in Feilding to the height recorded on Friday.