MEAT FOR EXPORT

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24738, 15 October 1941, Page 6

MEAT FOR EXPORT

LIGHTER WEIGHTS WANTED GREATER PRICE MARGINS EXPECTED (Special) CHRISTCHURCH. Oct. I'4. The differences in the price of high grade and lower grade export meats will, it is believed, be made more marked in the schedule of prices for the coming export season which the Minister of Agriculture and Marketing, Mr J. G. Barclay, said last week would be announced soon. It is understood that the conferences between the Government and the various interests connected with the trade here been comDieted and (hat encouragement of the production of lighter and. therefore, more valuable lambs, wethers and ewes for export, was agreed upon. For many months those connected with the meat export trade have believed that some alteration in the price schedule to bring about this result was contemplated, and many rumours gained currency, among the most persistent being one that the export of certain classes would be abandoned altogether and that farmers who normally produced them would be 'compensated from funds built up from a levy on the more valuable export. It is reported now that the new schedule is likely to allow of approximately the same prices as last year being paid for light lambs, wethers, and ewes, but for prices lower than those of last year being paid for, heavier weights. Recently it had been as profitable to produce some of the heavier grades of meat as the lighter and usually more valuable grades. The object, it is stated, is to produce somewhere about a normal year's meat (about 275,000 tons) for export, but to make it more valuable.