THE NORTHERN ADVOCATE Registered for transmission through the Post as a newspaper. – -ppJSXY~JULY 16, 1948~ The Dairy Produce Contract

Northern Advocate, 16 July 1948, Page 2

THE NORTHERN ADVOCATE Registered for transmission through the Post as a newspaper. - -ppJSXY~JULY 16, 1948~ The Dairy Produce Contract

As was foreshadowed in statements made a few days ago. an agreement of prime importance to the dairy farmers of New Zealand has been reached in London by the British Minister of Food and the New Zealand Dairy Products Marketing Commission.

Britain has contracted to buy almost the whole of the Dominion’s exportable surplus of butler and cheese for the next seven years—to July 81. 1955.

For the 1948-49 season Britain will pay 235/- sterling per cwt for butter and 133-- per cwt for cheese.

The price to be paid for butte: represents an increase of 30/- pet cwt compared with the 194/-48 season’s price.

The prices for both butler and cheese are subject to review each year, and they may be increased or decreased according to existing circumstances, but the variation either way is limited to 71 per cent, compared with the prices ruling during the preceding season. During the 1943-49 season. Britain will take 97 per cent of the exportable surplus, but the quantity, like the price, will be subject to annual review, or at intermediate times if it should be necessary to sell butter in other countries in order to procure essential commodities from those countries.

The advance of threepence sterling per pound in the price to be paid for New Zealand butter, and a corresponding advance in respect of cheese,

will increase by £0.000.000 sterling New Zealand's income from dairy produce sold in Britain during an average dairying season

It is clear, therefore, that the agreement reached should go a long

way to encourage the industry to increase output of butter and cheese to maximum extent.

It is true that the prices to be received under the new contract will not close the gap in terms of trade exchange between Britain and New Zealand, but they will reduce the gap. with beneficial results not to dairy farmers alone, but to the people of the Dominion generally. The agreement serves to demonstrate once more the extent to which New Zealand depends upon Britain as its chief customer for primary produce, and emphasises the fact that Britain’s restoration to economic stability is a matter of vital importance to this country. In view of the improved overseas market for wool and meat, and the agreement now made for the sale, at an increased price, of the exportable surplus Of dairy produce, the economic future of the Dominion may be contemplated with confidence. This, of course, is dependent upon the people as a whole realising the supreme need for concentrating upon productive industry rather than the leisure which prosperity too often makes alluring, and also upon international relationships becoming happier than they are at the moment. This consideration suggests that the existence of a reserve pool in which has been accumulated something like £31.000,000, made up of deductions from the proceeds of sales of farmers’ produce, must in the circumstances be a comfort to the farming community, for it would allow of the stabilisation of prices in the event of any recession overseas.