THE BACON INDUSTRY

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22098, 31 October 1933, Page 8

THE BACON INDUSTRY

From meat and dairy produce the British Government, intent -upon the development of the farming industry in the United Kingdom, has now turned its attention to bacon. The bacon industry at Home has, it seems, made such strides that it has reached a position which it was not expected to attain until two years hence. This will, it is reported by cable, “necessitate ” a further reduction of 16 per cent, in the imports of bacon. The use of the word which we have quoted illustrates the determination of the British Ministry of Agriculture, under its present head, to afford all possible protection to the Home pig-farmers. In these circumstances a request has been made to Australia and Hew Zealand to estimate their shipments of bacon to the United Kingdom during the next two years. An estimate of production will be required also from the British producers, and upon the data thus supplied to it the Government at Home will be able to decide the extent to which a restriction will be placed upon the importations from foreign countries, Australia and New Zealand send such inconsiderable quantities of bacon to the British market that their estimates of their 'exports are not . likely to affect to even a moderate extent the decision as to the quota which shall be applied to foreign shipments. New Zealand exports less than 2 per cent, of her production of bacon. The fact is that hier bacon is not regarded with favour in Great Britain. In the condition in which dt can be landed it is not to be compared with the bacon produced, in Denmark. And it is Denmark, which is entitled under the recent agreement to supply 62 per cent, of the foreign bacon imported by Great Britain, that must feel the effect of the proposed restriction. But the recovery in British agriculture, in itself a circumstance of great significance, must, it is maintained, render it increasingly probable that dominion producers will have to reckon in future with the imposition of quotas.