THE PRICE OF PIG FOOD.

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXV, Issue 19928, 23 April 1928, Page 14

THE PRICE OF PIG FOOD.

Sir, —I note in a recent edition of the Herald the Government is instituting scientific investigations concerning the pig industry. But what the dairyman or pig farmer, and for that matter the poultryman as well, want is the means to purchase meals of various sorts together with grain at a reasonable rate, so that they can feed their pigs economically. Every farmer knows well that by the addition of meal to skim milk pigs can be fattened more easily, increasing the value Ol the meat to the bacon curer or pork butcher, but at the exorbitant price of all meal and grain, who gains by it? Not the producer. A farmer sells his fab pigs at s£d to 6d per lb. less a percentage deducted for head and offal, about 401b. He has probably carried-milk, etc., to the two and three times daily for a period of, say, six months, and after paying cartage, railage and commission, etc., ho is lucky if he gets 50s per pig. The bacon curer kills and cures, in about three weeks, and if the farmer wants to purchase a lb. of rashers ho has to pay Is 5d to Is 7d per lb. What we want is the ability to purchase foodstuffs at a reasonable price, and if the maize grower cannot grow and compete with others ho should go out of the business, and the same with the wheat grower. Under the present conditions tha whole of the Dominion is being exploited for the support of a few growers in favoured localities. Pig Farmer.