MARKETING OF PRODUCE

Taranaki Daily News, 13 November 1934, Page 9

MARKETING OF PRODUCE

WHERE WEAKNESS LIES VALUE OF NEW LEGISLATION. FRESH OUTLETS MUST BE FOUND. (To the Editor.) Sir,—ln spite of criticism by interested and disinterested parties, the report •of the Royal Commission and the ensuing legislation are certainly valuable , and good. The merit of the whole survey centres around the awakening to the realisation that without proper organisation of export marketing there is no sense to continue farming. The Prime Minister was very frank. He said that New Zealand is supposed to be the worst marketer in the world. Yet, we know, the very livelihood of New Zealand depends on good marketing. Again and again must the salient fact be • driven home so that none may say: “I knew not, neither did I care.” With unspeakable prices obtained in London for butter (7d per lb.) the retail market there is still retained at 9d per lb. without any effort to close this gap; the Dairy Board is continuing to fix a price for f.o.b. sales at 4s to. 5s above Australia; Danish butter is selling 53s a cwt. higher than ours and retail at 6d a lb. above New Zealand; buyers in Britain, to whom f.o.b. business is prohibited here, are passing our orders to our competitors, etc. , This being the position of ou'r market- , ing to-day, our critics of the Agriculture (Emergency Powers) Act do not care and “do not know.”* They have their minds set upon domestic matters, and are hopelessly glued to politics, salaries projected, sectional cleavage, alms for farmers, protractions of business, etc. The catastrophe is due to our failure to cope with the external trade requirements combined with our internal inability (or unwillingness) to organise long ago an aggressive and energetic marketing policy. For twelve years I have been working on a farm here, and I maintain that there is nothing wrong at the farmer’s end. But from the moment the farmer parts (for ever) with his cream at the gates, everything is done to reduce his work to nothing. Captain Colbeck acknowledges 23s ljd gone out of 70s. expected in London before the butter is offered for sale. I think Jhese expenses are even higher. The remainder .of what is left, including the high exchange, does not com- the farmer’s way, either. It is percolated through exporters and factories’ machinery and paid out with a considerable delay at the pleasure of cream buyers. Obviously the system completely eliminates the producer, and he is the last person to blame for the mess made in marketing produce. The Royal Commission and the Act, following the commission’s recommendations practically to the letter, must be praised for- having understood this. They demand new markets, new men at the head of the marketing, and a complete overhaul of our main market. . As long as the farmers depend on (and delight in) lead from managers, experts and directors of dairy companies, the dairying will never be anything but. subservient work for manufacturing interests. Farmers are so used to thinking in catch phrases like “quotas would be suicidal,” “superfine only,” “Britain our only market,” “keep Ottawa pact,” that they have got into the habit of thinking they really mean something when they say them. While it would be absurd to suggest that farmers, who now join directors in protests against the Agriculture .(Emergency Powers) Act, do not know best what courses .they should take in regard to the disposal of their produce, it 'is equally absurd to say that they are taking the best The Dairy Industry Act, 1908, was the beginning of State or public supervision over the individual work and initiative, and the course taken by farmers brought them the 1923 legislation, setting up a control and pooling system, which will never allow any return back to personal freedom. What they really wanted was a better pay-out, a more businesslike distribution of goods produced, for the farmers work and exist on the fruits of their 'labour and not on standard wages. Ways should have been found of carrying the output economically over the widest possible area, instead of which means were evolved by schemes for checking, fixing and delaying trade. Collectivism was made the foundation stone. Regulations in all the details of exports were accepted as a necessity, and the Dairy Board was set up. Good work was expected from inexperienced persons put into, position of supreme authority when this work was made absolutely free from any real penalties in the event of failure. The Royal Commission and the Act are following the course approved by farmers and are, in fact, continuing the plan by extending the same principles of. control, this time free from sectional interests. If one accuses the commission of developing along lines of U.S.S.R. or U.S.A., or of outbidding the arbitrary administration of both Stalin and Roosevelt, one forgets that in 1923 factory directors were establishing socialisation and “tonnage” control of distribution by manufacturers. The commission desires to control the manufacturers as well, and insists that good marketing, impartial and free, must become a matter of paramount and pressing urgency, not only in finding and exploiting new additional markets, but also in developing alternative types of products manufactured. The commission indicates that our traditional view of Britain as a bottomless market must be abandoned, and that we must concentrate on finding and exploiting additional markets in the Far East and elsewhere for all bur staples, not dairies Had the commission recommended a cessation of search and struggle, or the Agriculture (Emergency Powers) Act a system of let things slide, provided the Dairy Board and exporters individually get what they want, then certainly one could call the whole business a cowardly call to retreat. As it is the project boldly stresses the fact of our inefficient marketing ability; shows the uselessness of the Dairy Board; perceives one way to deal with various States’ restrictions only by means of a State trading; states that diversification of markets is as important as diversification of production; and has in view a common aim,- held alike by producers and consumers—the improvement of national trade' by the exploitation of every available or potential avenue of disposal. With these recommendations to hand, any legislation designed to leave out the essence of reconstruction—the expansion and co-or-dination of .marketing—“in posse” if not “in esse,” might now become a breach of faith.—l am, etc., ALEXANDER S. TETZNER. Patumahoe, Nov. 1.