PRODUCERS' ASSOCIATION

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 68, Issue 5942, 12 May 1944, Page 4

PRODUCERS' ASSOCIATION

Sir, —It was with feelings of apprehension that I read a current viewpoint on the above subject from the pen of Wallace J. Hodgson. He reveals an appalling lack of knowledge with regard to farmers’ organisations, which in view of his standing as a farmers’ advocate seemingly is shared by many others. His opening statement will not bear the slightest investigation. The New Zealand Sheepowners’ Federation is the authorised industrial body of the sheep industry and is duly accepted as such by every Court in the land. This is an institution fully charged with the seriousness of its responsibilities to the most defenceless major industry of New Zealand; for it is closer to the heart of Nature with its eternal elementary conflicts in addition to the ever-increasing man-made problems of which the sheep farmer has always been a troubled and perplexed observer. No, his sense of injury in the general scheme of things is much too deep to produce superficial or false advocates.

Your correspondent goes on to write of the Farmers’ Union actions in regard to the New Zealand Meat Producers’ Board. The effect of the recent changes in the personnel of the board was to leave the Hawke’s Bay, East Coast and the Auckland provinces without representation, thereby disenfranchising the producers of approximately 33 per cent of sheep and 1,100,000 head of beef cattle out of a total New Zealand population of 1,900,000 head. Furthermore, foi the first time in the history of the Moat Board, the chairmanship was removed from producer control, and that over the head of Mr Janies Begg, an elected producer representative who is also president of the Farmers’ Federation and the New Zealand Sheepowners’ Federation. With regard to the dairy industry representation, this was a remit at an annual conference of the Sheepowners’ Federation which was finally agreed to by all concerned and provided by Act of Parliament. The seat is now the dairy industry’s by right of constitution and Statute, being filled by appointment. You will note that the basis of dairy representation in relation to meat producer members is one-sixth (16 per cent). The export meat involved

— t under the dairy industry heading, that is, pig meals, second grade or boneless beef, all bobbies, and fivesixths bull beef, is at present 14 per cent of the wholeI will refrain from entering into an explanation of the Farmers’ Federation, except to say that, far from only two (sheep and dairy) being considered in connection therewith, there are at present 14 farming organisations constituent thereof. I suggest to Mr Hodgspn that he convert this little simile into a homily and after looking into the bottle ask himself, where the 40,000 dairy farmers who are not members of the Farmers’ Union really are? The whole 60,000 are legally affiliated to their co-operative companies, which in turn can exercise considerable control over them; this spells real potential power in the farmers’ cause, and all this strength has been a constituent body within thvFarmers* Federation for the past three years, the first two years of which Mr W. W. Mulholland acted as president. Morrinsville is a domestic issue within the dairy industry which will undoubtedly find a solution, and many hope that solution will be a consolidated organisation of a single structure in place of the present three-way-tap, namely the Dairy Board, the Dairy Industry Council and the Farmers’ Union. As a close observer, these are my impressions. The Sheepowners’ Federation is not responsible for the dairy convulsion which began in Te Awamutu so many years ago, and is again boiling over in Morrinsville, Tauranga, Matamata-Tirau and other places. Maybe Te Awamutu erred in suppressing a fully accredited and cardinal democratic principle, that of self-determination.—l am, etc., GEO. A. WALSH.