INSURANCE ON PIGS

Opunake Times, 20 June 1939, Page 4

INSURANCE ON PIGS

POSSIBILITY BEING INVESTIGATED EFFECT ON GRADING The possibility of imposing an insurance on all pigs sold for slaughter and requiring that killing sheets showing weight and grade be returned to all sellers, in an effort to offset the bad effects on the grading of baconers that have arisen as a result of no-grade or saleyard buying, is being investigated by the Department of Agriculture, on the recommendation of the National Pig Industry Council. The recommednation was adopted at the annual meeting in Wellington after the chairman, Mr. A. H. Cockayne, had stated in his annual report that as a result of his visit to England last year he was impressed with the real importance of an immediate improvement in the quality of our pig-meat if there were to be any expansion in volume of our exports. "Southern hemisphere frozen baconers in Great Britain are acceptable in increasing quantities, provided quality improves," said Mr. Cockayne. "Two countries are concerned in this, New Zealand and Australia. "New Zealand first began to supply the demand for frozen baeoners with what were virtually ungraded pigs, the best of which were satisfactory. Australia is entering the field with all the knowledge that New Zealand experience has provided, and their export, which represents a small selected surplus of a yet undeveloped potential output, is often viewed as better than the New Zealand pig by the English fcurers. "With the expansion of their ex

port and the adoption of grading, this high standard can be maintained, and it creates a serious rival to our trade now developed to half capacity, and of a quality that is only threequarters as good as it might be. Weakest Feature "Tho situation is peculiar to the pig-meat trade, and is absolutely the weakest feature of it in New Zealand. In spite of the fact that killings for export to-day are approximately seventy-thousand carcases less than last year, it is untenable to presume that this is other than a normal fluctuation due to present tircumstances, and that there will be a continued increase in the volume of pigmeat produced. "While the present volume of lowgrade pig-meat can be disposed of satisfactorily on the English market, any increase in the volume of this class of meat is likely to have serious repercussions on the value of the whole of our export. "When pigs are graded after being backed-down, such grading is accepted without question by the English curers. Otherwise little notice is taken of the gradings. In the immediate future it will be necessary to see that all exported baconera are backeddown prior to grading. No-Grade Buying of Live Pigs "When grading was introduced it was generally agreed that its premier objective was to improve the quality of pigs for export in order to keep pace with improvements already made by our competitors. This improvement could be brought about most effectively by the payment of premiums for quality pigs, and the majority of exporting firms and pigbuyers undertook to pay these premiums on an agreed basis. "As soon as reduced payment for lower grades was added to reductions already being made for rejections, disease, and condemnations, the whole

question of selling on a quality basis was brought into disfavour, and last year has seen a swing over to no-gradr buying either at per head or per pound. This form of buying mask inferior quality, and so makes grading ineffective in the improvement of pigs. 1 '