BACONER PIGS

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXXI, 29 March 1938, Page 10

BACONER PIGS

GRADING REGULATIONS WELLINGTON. This Day. Appreciation of the earnest efforts made by operators to give effect to the regulations governing the grading of baconer pigs, which were gazetted at the beginning of February, was expressed by the Minister of Agriculture, the Hon. W. Lee Martin, in a statement to-day. “During the previous three months the trade undertook the measurement of all baconers and submitted these returns to the Department of Agriculture as a preliminary step in the establishment of grading standards,” said the Minister. “The standards finally adopted were those in use for the grading of Canadian bacon in England, reduced by one-eighth of an inch to make allowance for measurements made with a trier before the pigs are backed down. Some exporters prefer to back down their pigs before measurement, and to meet these cases oneeighth of an inch has been added to the shoulder standards. The original Canadian shoulder standards are used.

“Producers may be interested to know that for the month of February the average percentages of ones, twos, threes, and second quality were 53, 32, 13, and 2 respectively. These figures are obtained from 20,000 baconers graded, and are in close agreement with the averages returned during the trial period of December —actually within one per cent, in all cases. This can be taken as evidence of an honest attempt on the part of the trade to do the job well, since a number one pig is worth approximately 5s more than a number two, with a similar price difference for each lower grade. “The knowledge that at least half his baconers stand a fair chance of being graded No. 1 prime should be of inestimable benefit to the producer in deciding how to market his pigs. The success of grading now rests with the producer, and his policy should be to produce pigs which grade Number one prime.”

Asked what supervision was being exercised by his Department over the grading, the Minister explained that at every licensed killing point a meat Inspector of the Department of Agriculture checked the grading daily, and that in addition to this the supervising graders of the New Zealand Meat Producers Board were visiting all works frequently so as to ensure uniformity.