FRUIT PRICES IN DOMINION

Southland Times, Issue 24300, 4 December 1940, Page 8

FRUIT PRICES IN DOMINION

STATE MARKETING IS CRITICIZED

BAD DEAL CLAIMED FOR CONSUMERS

(From Our Parliamentary Reporter) WELLINGTON, December 3. When the Minister of Marketing (the Hon. W. Nash) in the House today formally moved the second reading of the Agricultural Emergency Regulations Confirmation Bill, an annual measure which usually goes through with a minimum of discussion, Opposition members took the opportunity of criticizing the handling by the Marketing Department of lemons and other produce. Mr W. J. Broadfoot (Nat., Waitomo) said that the regulations were far-reaching and affected every member of the community. It seemed that in common with other emergency I regulations the consumer had been J completely forgotten. | “The producer gets a bad enough deal,” he continued, “but the consumer gets a worse one.” He mentioned that early in November the market price of lemons in Wellington was 18/6 a bushel case, wholesale. That was the. price received by the Internal Marketing Department, less commission of 5 per cent. This left the department with 17/1 a case. He understood that the price paid to the producer was 7/- a case. There was a big gap between 17/1 and 7/-. Storage and cartage had to be paid, but there was an extraordinary range between the price paid to the producer and the price paid by the retailer. The producer was getting one penny for three lemons, while the consumer paid anything between lid and 2j.d a lemon. Mi- H. S. S. Kyle (Nat., Riccarton): They are pulling up apple trees in Canterbury.

Mr Broadfoot: In Nelson as well

Mr J. A. Lee (Dem. Lab., Grey Lynn) raised a laugh by commenting that • there were not enough pigs to eat all . the second-grade fruit that was not being made available. The country had the alternative of State marketing or the old system, but at present it had a hybrid system that should be avoided. The State had purchased the fruit and thousands of cases were rotting because the people were not buying them. He suggested that rather than let it waste it should be given to the taxpayers by some system of coupons. HEAVY LOSSES Mr W. A. Bodkin (Nat., Cent. Otago) claimed that pears had been taken by the Marketing Department and were being sold to retailers at 25/- a case. He asked what was the profit on apples exported, what was the profit or loss on pears and what was the loss on apples marketed in New Zealand. Mr Bodkin also claimed that there had been heavy losses of stored fruit due to inefficiency in storing. He admitted it to be unreasonable to expect 100 per cent, results, but said that if there was not an improvement hundreds of acres of apples and pears would go out of production. Mr Kyle charged the Government with having broken down in its system of distribution. Its control of foodstuffs was on a par with its muddling of the marketing proposals. “Never in the history of this country has the consumer had to pay so much for fruit,” declared Mr Kyle, “and yet we are having it tipped out on rubbish dumps. We believe that the Government’s organization is no good whatever. It is a disgrace for the Government to put on the market the rotten material they are selling.” In defence of the Government’s marketing methods Mr A. G. Osborne (Lab., Onehunga) said that as a past retailer he had had experience from September onwards of having upwards of 50 per cent, of bad apples in a case. Now, because under this Government the Marketing Division had inaugurated an orderly system and was repacking every case of apples before it was paid for by the consumer, that was brought forward as evidence of wrong methods. As a result of this system retailers and consumers were able to purchase cases of sound fruit.

Four points were made by die Hon. W. Nash in replying to the debate. They were:— (1) That the Government did not take on the marketing of apples and pears because the Government wanted to, but at the request of the growers. (2) More fruit had been sold than ever before. (3) Fruit had been sold for less than previously. (4) There had been less wastage. Mr Nash contended that anyone who tried to compare the price paid for a case of lemons at 7/- with the price realized now and then for a small quantity of lemons was not making a true picture of the market. The actual position in regard to the purchase and sale of lemons was that last year a better price had been paid to the grower than he had received in any of the five previous years and probably at any time. By purchase and sale the department had lost a fair amount of money dealing with apples and pears.

LOWER PRICES Mr Nash said that apples had reached consumers in the Dominion this year at a lower price than ever before. The fact that they happened to be 6d a pound just now was being used by persons who wanted to criticize the Government unfairly to suggest that apples had never been that price before, but he had seen them at 8d a pound in the past and apples had also been imported to meet the market at this time of the year. In April this year, said Mr Nash, 240,000 cases of apples had been sold at a fraction more than Id a pound, in May 228,000 cases at a fraction over IJd a pound and in June 180,000 cases at 5/10 a case, on an average. In one period of seven weeks they had 1,150,000 cases of fruit to market and from February 9 to May 3 there were 1,830,000 cases of fruit. It was physically impossible to store that quantity. Obviously, they had to be marketed. Ultimately the Government had been successful in exporting 580,000 cases. The surplus on the overseas market would be greater than the loss on the local market. He thought the surplus on the overseas market would be about £200,000 and the loss on the local market, very approximately, would be about the same sum.

“We cannot lose money after paying 5/- a case and then be subject' to the charge that we have not sold the fruit cheaply,” added Mr Nash. “That is contradictory.” Referring to the question of wastage Mr Nash said that wastage in the season now concluding was less than the average. Mr Nash said that they should try to find a way to compensate fruit growers on a low economic basis. “We may pay a little more than we did last year,” he said, “and if there is a loss the House must not criticize.” He added that they had had the advantage of a certain amount of export this year but they could not expect that next year. The Bill was passed.