PIG FARMERS

Te Awamutu Courier, Volume 77, Issue 6568, 20 September 1948, Page 5

PIG FARMERS

UNREST SAID TO EXIST AMONG THEM REPORT CIRCULATED TO DAIRY COMPANIES “Just at present thei;e is a great deal of unrest among pig farmers, and they are smarting under certain injustices,” states Mr R. Ireland, a director of the Cambridge Co-opera-tive Dairy Company, Limited, fri a report following the annual meeting cf the New Zealand Co-op. Pig Marketing Association recently. This report has been circulated to dairy companies, and a copy sent to the Minister of Agriculture, Mr Cullen, and the replies received would indicate that Mr Ireland’s statements are endorsed. Bacon pigs are skim-milk products, and 90 per cent of total pigs in the Dominion are fattened on skim-milk, butter-milk, and whey, says M’r Ireland’s report. When skim-milk and butter-milk are made into milkpowder and sold at world parity prices, the dairy companies receive in full the whole of the proceeds. There is a restriction preventing those companies paying out more than 3d a pound better than butter, but the companies can use the surpluses which they receive over and above the 3d a pound for maintenance etc., the rest of the monies being held in reserve by the dairy companies which are responsible to the individual suppliers. This is a reasonably good setup. The pig farmer does not get the same treatment, contends Mr Ireland, when he manufactures his skim milk into a bacon pig, he gets about 50 per cent less than world parity price, nothing for maintenance, upkeep and extensions.

“I do not believe it is in the interests of the economy of this country to force the whole of the Waikato Valley into dried milk products and obliterate the pig, which the price the pig farmer is receiving at present is sure to do,” adds Mr Ireland. “I believe that in comparison with the price received for other meat products, the pig farmer is not being fairly treated.” In acknowledging Mr Ireland’s letter, the Minister, Mr Cullen, states that the national pig industry council have for some time been stressing the need for an incentive price of pigmeats to prevent further decline ia production, and Mr Ireland’s representations will be taken into account when discussions on the prices to be naid for the coming season take place in the near future.