WHEAT GROWING IN CENTRAL OTAGO

Otago Daily Times, Issue 25799, 21 March 1945, Page 6

WHEAT GROWING IN CENTRAL OTAGO

Sir, —It is refreshing to see wheatgrowers again taking up the question of excessive f.o.b. charges on wheat grown in the back country. Some of the old hands endeavoured to get this anomaly adjusted many years ago, but only with partial success, and the little that was then achieved has vanished with the closing of the Luggate and Arrowtown flour mills. Growers are not permitted to deal direct with the millers, or even sell milling wheat to poultry farmers If they were, we could at present receive a higher price for our grain. We are, however, forced to put it through brokers, and receive thefixed price less f.o.b. charges in Dunedin, with the result that we are now much worse off than in the past, especially with increased cost of production. The wheatgrowers here have never been able to decide where the opposition arose to what everyone (Ministers included) considered a reasonable request, but now from the particulars which have come to light in your paper during the past few days one is able by elimination to locate fairly accurately this disturbing element. We now know that the provincial president of the Otago Farmers’ Union requested the Electoral Committee to make some adjustment in f.o.b. charges to improve the position of the inland wheatgrowers. The South Canterbury Farmers’ Union also moved in the same direction. It therefore seems that the opposition must come from either Mid-Canterbury or North Canterbury. It may be possible to ascertain the members who influenced the Electoral Committee against the request of Mr Cockburn. If so, we shall at least know the representatives whose selfish action, or want of vision, stifled this reform. It is men of this calibre who cause disruption and discontent where co-opera Mon and harmony should prevail, and the sooner thej are dislodged the better for all concerned. An equitable adjustment of f.o.b. charges should have been made by the Wheat Committee of Its own volition long ago. When a person is privileged to occupy a position of trust on a representative body his first duty should be to make himself acquainted with the regulations set down for his guidance, and then he should make sure that the chief objects of the body are carried out in accordance with the regulations. This apparently has not been done since the inception of the " Wheat Board ” in 1933 with the resultant restriction of the area sown to wheat. I would like to suggest that s should the Wheat Committee not take immediate steps to adjust these charges, the Farmers’ Union take the matter up with the Minister in order that we may know where we stand.—l am, etc.,

Another Dissatisfied Grower.