FRUIT MARKETING

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume LXXIII, 4 December 1940, Page 6

FRUIT MARKETING

OPPOSITION CRITICISM MINISTER’S REPLY TO DEBATE j LESS APPLE WASTAGE THAN j USUAL j [From Our Own Parliamentary Reporter] WELLINGTON, This Day. When the Minister of Finance and Marketing, Mr Nash, in the House of Representatives yesterday, formally moved the second reading of the Agricultural Emergency Regulations Confirmation Bill, an annual measure which usually goes through all stages with a minimum of discussion, Op- 1 position members took the opportunity of criticising the handling by the Marketing Department of lemons and other produce, parti- | cularly apples. PRICE OF LEMONS Mr W. J. Broadfoot (National, Waitomo) said that the regulations l affected every member of the community. It seemed that in common with other emergency regulations the consumer had been completely forgotten. “The producer gets a bad ! enough deal,” he continued, “but the consumer gets the worst one.” He 1 mentioned that early in November the ! market price of lemons in Wellington . was 18s 6d a bushel case wholesale. That was the price received by the Internal Marketing Department less comI mission of 5 per cent. This left the Department with 17s Id a case. He understood that the price paid to the producer was 7§ a case. There was a big gap between 17s Id and 7s. Storage and cartage had to be paid but there was an extraordinary range between the price paid to the producer and the price paid by the retailer. The producer was getting one penny for three lemons while the consumer paid anything between lid and 2£d per lemon. He had been informed that as the result of low prices, in ,the Bay of Plenty district a bulldozer was pulling up lemon trees. If that were so the Minister should make a close investigation of the position. Mr H. S. S. Kyle (National, Riccarton): They are pulling up apple trees in Canterbury. Mr Broadfoot: In the Nelson district as well. Mr A. Osborne (Government, Onehunga): They pulled apples up in the days of Adam. (Government laughter.) “HYBRID SYSTEM” “I understand there are not quite enough pigs to eat all of the low grade fruit that has not been made available,” Mr J. A. Lee (Democratic Labour. Grey Lynn) said. They could have State marketing or the old hit and miss system but they should avoid a hybrid of the two and that was what they appeared to have at present. There were tens of thousands of cases of good fruti rotting when they could be consumed if the State would give each taxpayer a title to a share of the fruit. The fruit could not be disposed of by issuing more money because there was no guarantee that the money would be spent on fruit. He suggested a system whereby coupons available only for fruit should be issued. The country was faced with the same problem with other commodities that were produced in abundance and unless the State developed a technique whereby the consumers cduld get such * articles without ris of a rush being r made on goods in short supply there * would be wastage while people went II without. | In reply to an interjector who asked ' who would pay for it, Mr Lee said the fruit was paid for through the guaranj teed price and would be better given to > the taxpayers than allowed to rot. ’ INEFFICIENCY ALLEGED , Mr W. A. Bodkin (National, Central : Otago) said that a grower had told him that the State had taken 1500 cases of ■ pears from him and they were being sold to the retailers for 25s a case. Mr Bodkin asked the Minister of Marketing what was the profit on the apples exported this year; what was the profit or loss on pears; and what was the loss on apples marketed in r New Zealand? Mr Nash said the information asked , for would appear in a report to be i issued shortly. Mr Bodkin said there appeared to ' have been an enormous loss of apples • in store and he believed that was due . to inefficiency. It would be unreasonable to expect such a scheme to work • to 100 per cent in the first year but if there were not a decided improvement hundreds of acres of trees would be destroyed. He had been informed that 1 700 acres of apples and pears had al- i . ready been pulled out. GOVERNMENT’S CONTROL OF FOODSTUFFS Mr H. S. S. Kyle (National, Riccarton) charged the Government with 1 having broken down in its system of; distribution. Its control of foodstuffs was on a par with its muddling on the marketing proposals. “Never in the history of this country has the consumer had to pay so much for fruit,” declared Mr Kyle, “and yet we are having it tipped out on the rubbish dumps. We believe that the Government’s organisation is rio good whatever. It is a disgrace for the Goverment to put on I the market the rotten material they are selling.” FORMER RETAILER’S EXPERIENCE In a defence of the Government’s' marketing methods Mr A. G. Osborne i (Government, Onehunga) said that as a past retailer he had had the exper- 1 ience from September onwards of hav- * ing upwards of 50 per cent of bad apples in a case. Now, because under this Government the marketing divi- 1 sion had inaugurated an orderly j system and was repacking every case of apples before it was paid for by the consumer, that was brought forward as ; evidence of wrong methods. As a re- • suit of this system retailers and consumers were able to purchase cases of sound fruit. The evidence he had up to the present was that there had been ; less wastage and decay of the fruit this year than in previous years. MINISTER’S STATEMENT Four points were made by the Minister of Marketing (Mr Nash) when replying to the debate. They were (1) that the Government did not take on the marketing of apples and pears because the Government wanted to but at the request of the growers; (2) more fruit had been sold than ever before; (3) the fruit had been sold for less than previously; and (4) there had been less wastage. Mr Nash contended that anyone who tried to compare the price paid for a case of lemons. 7s. with the price realised now and then for a small quantity of lemons was not making a true picture of the market. The actual position in regard to the purchase and sale of lemons was that last year a better price had been paid to the grower than he had received in any of the five previous years, and probably at any time. By the purchase and the sale the department had lost a fair amount of money. The reason for a bull-dozer being used to pul! trees out at Tauranga was that they were affected by citrus canker, but the growers r

I were being compensated for the trees ] j that had to be destroyed. The growers lat Tauranga had congratulated the j department on its organisation, the buying, curing, handling and distribu- | tion of the fruit. j Dealing with apples and pears, Mr j Nash said that apples had reached the j j consumers in the Dominion this year lat a lower price than ever before. Just j because they happened to be 6d per lb 1 just now was being used by people i who wanted to criticise the Government unfairly to suggest that apples j had never been that price before. But 1 he had seen them at 8d per lb in the ] past and apples had also to be imported to meet the market at this time of the year. In April of this year, said Mr Nash. 240.000 cases of apples had been sold at a fraction more than Id per lb, in May 228,000 cases at a fraction over (lid per lb., and in June 180,000 cases i |at 5s lOd per case on the average. In i one period of seven weeks they had ! 1.150,000 cases of fruit to market, and | from 9th February to 3rd May there ; were 1,830,000 cases of fruit. It wfts physically impossible to store that quantity. At that time they were ! charged with finding storage for cheese ’ I and butter; there was not the storage *: accommodation to take the apples and 1 1 pears available. Obviously they had , 1 to be marketed. ■ I Ultimately the Government had I i been successful in exporting 580,- - 000 cases. The surplus on the over- - seas market would be greater than ■ ; the loss on the local market. He II thought the surplus on the overseas market would be about £200,- ■ i 000 and the loss on the local mar--1 ket, very approximately, would be ? j about the same sum. »j “We cannot * lose money after pay- [! ing 5s per case and then ">e subject to . j the charge that we have not sold the t j fruit cheap.” added Mr Nash. “That . is contradictory.” WASTAGE LESS THAN USUAL Referring to the question of wast- [ age, Mr Nash said that the wastage in • the season now concluding was less ; than the average. The experience in E regard to management gained in the ; pest year would be used to try and » show better results in the coming year. . The department had had the advice of every imaginable man associated with . the industry and they would see if 5 J they could profit by it and so reduce | wastage further. 1 1 Mr Nash said that they should try and find a way to compensate the . | fruitgrowers on a low economic basis. »I “We may pay a little more than we ) did last year.” he said, “and if there is a loss the House must not criticise.” Mr Nash added that they had had , the advantage of a certain amount of \ export this year but they could not ’ expect that next year. The Bill was passed. 1 _______