POTATO SUPPLIES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24944, 17 June 1942, Page 4

POTATO SUPPLIES

WITHHELD BY GROWERS AWAITING PRICE INCREMENT (P.A.) CHRISTCHURCH, June 18. The supply of potatoes to Auckland is likely t« be seriously retarded during the next fortnight or three weeks by the operation of the monthly mere-nic-nts made under the Governments V price fixation scheme. Complaints have been received from Auckland that South Island growers are holding pota- > toes until July in order to secure the rise of 10s a ton operative for that month. Christchurch merchants, who were interviewed to-day, stated that the complaint was well founded. The reactions ware likely to be serious so far as regular supplies to Auckland city and to the army were concerned. Auckland was on bare boards last week, it was stated, but the position was temporarily eased by a southern shipment. This would not last long, and the failure of growers to ship their ordinary June quantities would aggravate the position seriously. "A freighter which is to make a special trip will lift potato supplies at Lyttelton, but in view of the present position the space is unlikely to be filled," the manager of a shipping company said to-day. "As later boats will carrv mixed cargoes, it is probable that when the rush of these later potatoes comes forward in July and August there may not be the shipping available." One merchant said to-day that before the price fixation scheme was introduced most of the operators had made heavy contracts for June deliveries, as well as for earlier and later months. Manv growers with whom' these June contracts were made had declined, as was within their rights, to deliver June potatoes, and to wait another fortnight and secure the additional 10s a ton.

[t was understood that many of these potatoes were in sacks, and could be speedily delivered. The only escape from the position that has developed, it is suggested, is for the Government to exclude the June contract potatoes from the benefits of the July increment. POSITION IN AUCKLAND RETAILERS WELL STOCKED (P.A.) AUCKLAND, June 16. The problem of potato supplies for the northern market was reviewed at a meeting of the Auckland Grain, Seed, and Produce Merchants' Association to-day, after which it was stated that the position was not such as to cause grave anxiety. Inquiries from individual traders, however, revealed considerable diversity of opinion. In some quarter's it was stated that the visible supplies were almost non-exist-ent, and that if South Island growers persisted in their present refusal to quote there would soon be no potatoes to sell. Information from other quarters was that stocks were sufficient for the moment, and that there was the certainty, contingent on shipping, of a continuance of supplies on contract from the south. Those who could see no prospect of getting supplies until after prices at the farm had risen, sufficiently to make growers willing to execute deliveries, agreed that the retailers .in Auckland had recently been fairly well stocked up, and that other sections of the trade which had contracts of supply would probably be landing further shipments before stocks were exhausted.

While heavy stocks were not held, said a statement issued by the Merchants' Association, the supply position was such that the normal demand was being met. - .'-