GARTON OATS

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25135, 28 January 1943, Page 6

GARTON OATS

CONDITION OF THE MARKET

CONTRIBUTING FACTORS (P.A.) CHRISTCHURCH, Jan. 27. A denial that the Canterbury Production Council has requested the increased production of Garton oats was made to-day by Mr R. P. Connell, fields superintendent of the Department of Agriculture in Christchurch, commenting on the statement by Mr A. H. Spratt, president of the North Canterbury Grain Merchants' Association, on the marketing of oats. He also suggested other factors than those mentioned in the present market position. Mr Connell said that after consultation with the National Council of Primary Production, the Minister of Agriculture, Mr J. G. Barclay, in a statement last March said: “ Last year (194041) 306,944 acres were grown, of which 71,758 acres were for threshing. The estimate of the total sowings this season (1941-42) was 275,000 acres. It is advisable that plantings in the coming year should be maintained at least at the level of this year.” Such advice had been, and still was, sound in spite of any interim developments, said Mr Connell, as the great bulk of the oats crop, grown for feeding live stock, and kept in reserve for such purpose, did not need to be wasted while the live stock population continued at the present level. The North Canterbury Production Council had appointed a special committee to formulate a programme and bring it under the notice of farmers, Mr Connell said. As a result of the deliberations of the committee, of which Mr Spratt was a member, an appeal to grow Garton or any other oats was made by the council. The committee considered that it could not promulgate a definite programme except at the risk of contributing to a position such as had now developed. “ It may be said safely that the present condition of the market for Garton oats is due in part to factors not mentioned in Mr Spratl’s statement,” Mr Connell said. “The mild winter resulted in the area of oats utilised completely for feeding-off being less extensive than in a harder winter. The favourable season has given yields greater than could safely be expected, and the returns that seemed in prospect probably brought about sowings additional to what would have been made had the prospective returns been less attractive.”