Dunedin Gardeners Will Not Supply Potatoes

Northern Advocate, 8 January 1947, Page 4

Dunedin Gardeners Will Not Supply Potatoes

The recent difficulty housewives have experienced in securing vegetables has now been further complicated by the decision of market gardeners not to supply new potatoes to merchants in the city, but to sell to the public direct from gardens at 4d a lb. This decision, which arose from the dissatisfaction of growers with the fixed price of the new season's crop sold this month, has created a virtual famine, while merchants are naturally dissatisfied with the situation, which has developed without warning. They agree that the growers have a legitimate grievance. They are supporting' the growers’ requests for amendment of controlled prices to make it worth while for gardeners to resume supplying the markets. < A meeting of the Dunedin Fruit and Produce Auctioneers’ Association and egg and produce merchants was held yesterday, and it was unanimously decided to support the growers’ application for continuance of the December prices for new potatoes until the end of January, with the January price order to come into force in February. NONE FOR .FORTNIGHT - Members said there was no prospect of potatoes coming on to the market for at least two weeks. Growers at Outram had applied to the Price Tribunal to carry the December fixed price of £35 a ton for firstgrade potatoes and £3l for undergrade into January to recompense them for the season being a month late. They were refused this concession and a price order of £25 foi first-grade and £22 for under-grade became operative for January. The growers decided it was not profitable to dig and left the crop growing. FIXED PRICES “FARCICAL” Fruit and vegetable retailers were asking for ceiling prices, irrespective of what they paid in the market, said Mr F. Brown, chairman of the New Aucklander's Service To India Recognised (P.A.) AUCKLAND, This Day. Sir Clutha Mackenzie has been awarded the Kaisa-i-Hind Medal, Ist Class, in the Indian New Year Honours. The award is made for public service in India. Well known in Auckland as director of the New Zealand Institute for the Blind, Sir Clutha has been in India for some years supervising the setting up of St Dunstan’s there for the care and training of blinded soldiers and is now in Dehradun. He recently published a report on the welfare of the blind in India.

He will soon travel to China to advice the Government on the welfare of blinded servicemen.

His wife, Lady Mackenzie, resides in Manurewa.

(P.A.) DUNEDIN, This Day

Zealand Fruit and Produce Merchants and Auctioneers’ Association.

“The public is being ‘trimmed’ all the time,” he said. “I laugh when ,1 hear these broadcasts of ceiling

prices. ’ Mr Brown said that he had been asked lOd for a cabbage which he knew had been sold at 1/- a sack.

Ceiling prices had resulted in unsatisfactory returns to growers and insufficient supplies of many lines were on the market, he added.

The best way to encourage production in New Zealand was either to allow a free market'or to guarantee returns that would ensure a payable return to the producers.