NO INCREASE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 26416, 21 March 1947, Page 6

NO INCREASE

PRODUCTION OF EGGS CONTINUED RATIONING RECOMMENDED P.A. WELLINGTON, Mar. 20. After considering the effects of the present fowl-feed situation, the Postwar Egg Marketing Committee is of the opinion that no greater quantities of eggs will be available this year. It recommends that egg rationing should be continued. This information, which is contained in a report which the committee made to the .Minister of Agriculture, Mr Cullen, was given this morning to the Dominion conference of registered poultrykeepers.. Because of the feed shortage, the committee recommends that in the interest of consumers some form of subsidy should be continued and egg rationing should be continued in times of shortage. The committee suggests a guaranteed minimum and a fixed maximum price, with flexibility for fixing prices between these two points, as the best method in the meantime for returning to the producer a proper cost of production. It recommends that the control of egg marketing should be vested in a representative body consisting of four members elected by the poultry industry and four to represent the Government and consumers, and with powers to appoint its own chairman, who would not have a casting vote. The committee favoured the establishment in heavy egg-production areas of cool store facilities. for the provision of an all the year round supply of shell eggs. It also recommended that attention should be given to modern pulping operations and that eggs in shell should not be imported unless the supplies cf eggs were totally inadequate. The Director of Internal Marketing, Mr R. P. Fraser, explained that the committee had been set up to evolve an alternative marketihg plan to war-time Egg Marketing Emergency Regulations. “ The committee did not have sufficient evidence to say that production of eggs has gone down or remained the same.” said Mr Fraser, “ but there is no evidence to show that the quantity of eggs being utilised has gone down.”