OUTLOOK FOR BEEF.

Taranaki Daily News, 16 August 1929, Page 8

OUTLOOK FOR BEEF.

Commenting upon the general outlook for beef raising Sir Edmund Vestey, one of the heads of the largest meat importing and distributing organisation in Great Britain, expressed the opinion that prospects were good for the cattle raiser for some years to come. Though ho was referring particularly to the possibilities of stock raising in the Argentine, Sir. Edmund Vestey’s remarks had some bearing on the position in New Zealand. Criticising suggestions made in the London Times that British farmers should largely increase the production of beef in the United Kingdom, he said that countries where the heavy expense of hand-feeding cattle through the winter must be undertaken had little chance of competing with beef grown in countries whore the climate permitted cattie to he left on the pastures all the year round. There was a section of the British public which demanded homo grown beef, irrespective of its cost, but that section was not likely to become a very large one. For the rest of the consumers imported beef, at prices far below the home grown article, wae the product demanded. In the Argentine, said Sir Edmund, not only had they high-class stock but they had developed methods of chilling which enabled the meat to be landed in London in the best possible condition, and one which suited the market much better than supplies of frozen meat. It has to be admitted that in New Zealand the quality of beef raised cannot equal that grown in the Argentine, simply because of the difference in conditions. Here ’cattle are used mostly to assist in breaking in new country; in Argentina they force the growth of the animals until at two to two-and-a-half years they are as well developed as the New Zealand four year old beast. The condition in which the meat reaches the market also counts, and until this is improved the New Zealand beef trade will be seriously handicapped if, indeed, it does not altogether cease. There is little fear of America absorbing all the output of the Argentine. Competition from the Republic is likely to increase rather than diminish.