HEAVY PAYOUT

Poverty Bay Herald, Volume LXVI, Issue 19884, 10 March 1939, Page 7

HEAVY PAYOUT

FRUIT GUARANTEE PRICE LAST SEASON’S OUTPUT ESTIMATE OF £200,000 EFFECT ON STATE (Per Press Association.) CHRISTCHURCH, this day. The Government’s guaranteed price to fruitgrowers for last season's crop has created an embarrassing situation for the Minister of Marketing, the Hon W. Nash. This opinion is firmly held by members of the New Zealand Fruitgrowers’ Federation. No official information Is available concerning the amount of the subsidy to be paid or the expenditure involved. A payment is expected at the end of the month and the estimates of the amount support the prediction made early in thd season last year that the Government would be faced with a payout of over £200,000, a sum greatly in excess of anything anticipated by the Minister. Federation officials base their estimate on apples only because it is believed that other varieties of fruit were sold at an average price in excess of the Government guarantee of 5s 2d a bushel, f.o.b. They believe that about 2,000,000 cases of apples 'were sold on the internal market at an average price of 3s a case. That means a subsidy payment of 2s a case compared with the 1937 season, when the subsidy scheme was inaugurated. Last season’s payout is bound to be exceptionally heavy. In 1937 the amount of the subsidy was a shade over 4d a case and aggregated about £40,000. Last season, however, there was a bumper crop and half-way through the marketing period there was a glut.