EXPORT FIGURES

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 66, Issue 5597, 26 March 1943, Page 2

EXPORT FIGURES

WHEN the dairy farmers were asked to change over production from butter to cheese it meant that the skimmilk formerly , used to feed pigs was not available. The effects can be seen in the figures relating to overseas trade. The exports of frozen pork last year dropped by nearly 220,000 cwt. in quantity and by £793,000 in value. That was the only decline in the volume of any class of meat shipped last year, and it was solely due to the change-over from butter to cheese. The effects will be apparent this season because the breeding of pigs declined so rapidly. In the first five months of the current season the number (31.800) of porkers killed shows a decline of 47,000 when compared with the corresponding period of last season, and the baconers at 75,000 have fallen by 102,000 head. The latest development is a price stabilisation scheme, with an extension of the powers of the Marketing Department to purchase all pigs killed through the various works and abattoirs. Pig meats now pass under the same control as so many other essential foodstuffs, a development which is becoming associated in the minds <?f many people, especially housewives, with increasing shortages. The Minister of Marketing has expressed his confidence that the plan will work smoothly, although no mention is made of any consumers’ representative on the committee appointed.