MARKETING OF BUTTER

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXIX, Issue 21377, 29 December 1932, Page 6

MARKETING OF BUTTER

The present level of prices for dairy produce is so low as to justify a thorough search for any method or device that would help to bring the producer a better return for his output. The general manager of the New Zealand Co-operative Dairy Company, in a survey of the outlook, suggests that a reorganisation of the marketing system could do much toward reducing the difference between the prices for Danish and New Zealand butter. The present wholly competitive method of selling, he declares, is costing the dairy farmers and the community hundreds of thousands of pounds a year. Much of what Mr. Parlane advances can be conceded. There should be room for more orderly marketing, and for some reduction of a system by which many Sellers are helping the export buyer to obtain supplies at lower rates than might otherwise be commanded. The extension to marketing of co-operative methods, so firmly established m manufacture, can be considered hopefully so long as there is a clear understanding that it must be on a voluntary basis, and that the movement must be allowed to grow through recognition of its benefits. Any attempt to revive the compulsory pooling scheme would be doomed to failure from the beginning. The history of the previous ill-fated effort should prove that. There should, however, be room for greater uniformity in marketing to replace the present diffusion of effort in a thousand directions. There is no proof of gain by the practice of individual factories offering their outputs under distinctive brands. The supplies of butter to the British market are so enormous, there is so much competition from other countries, that the two essential factors for sound selling are uniformly high

guaranteed by the grading system, and orderly deliveries*; AVith these two points as a beginning there should be room for profitable cooperation. Compulsion is ruled out. A complete national organisation would probably be too ambitious an original aim. It might well prove impracticable even as an ultimate goal. At the outset valuable results might come from an effort at regional organisation. If the weakest sellers were drawn into district pools, selling that breaks the market without justification might be avoided. A common understanding between districts might then give the advantages, without the unwieldiness and other dangers, of a national pool. Along such lines the dairying industry might evolve to its own advantage a system resulting in more orderly and more profitable marketing, to its own advantage and to the detriment of no form of legitimate trading.