WHEAT QUESTION.

Timaru Herald, Volume XCVIII, 11 December 1925, Page 7

WHEAT QUESTION.

To the Editor of the “Timaru Herald.” Sir, —Perhaps you will grant me the publicity of your columns to express my views on a topic that is of natural interest. I refer to that of wheat growii>g. Our citizens do not realise the importance of this industry, ancl as a grower of many years’ experiences, and on a considerable scale, I can assure the people of this Dominion that, wheat growing is in very real danger of becoming extinct, so far as New Zealand is concerned. The general public are not alive to the danger, and it is with the object of putting tlfb position before them that I ask you to publish the following facts: — (1) Dependence on others for the bread that feeds us is suicidal and anti-national. (2) We possess good wheat-growing land in • abundance. (3): Our capacity and ability: : to. grow wheat is undoubted.'-' (4) The rea-son-for not growing it.jis the fact that the price is uncertain. (5) If- ■ present controlled prices were fixed for three years, a .surplus is almost a certainty. (6) A.surplus means an increase'in exports and national benefit, including more work locally. (7) Sufficient production.' for our own needs means keeping the cash in our own pockets. (8) This year we shall have to hand Australia no less than £1,350,000, practically £1 per head of the population, for our dally bread. (9) The wheat grow- ) ing land as a whole cannot give any- | thing like the same gross, return, if it were devoted to any other crop, or crops. -(10) Dairying or sheep farming on the same area does not yield anything like the return that wheat gives.' (11) Wheat growing is of vital interest to dairymen, because of the bran and pollard. The poultry industry cannot go on without wheat. The implement makers and the whole machinery trade applicable to agriculture may be jeopardised if we give up wheat-growing. (12) Wheat in the shape of bread has become a necessity of our existence, and is the cheapest article of food we eat. (13) At the present price (1/- per 41b loaf), the man in the street does not realise that there is. a future possibility of liis having to pay 2/per 41b loaf, if our farmers give up growing it, and we become dependent on others. (14) Fixing the, price of wheat at a fair payable price to the farmers, and controlling the price of bread, gives everybody a fair deal, except the speculator. (15) This wheat business is of paramount national importance to every man, woman and child who eats bread. Only the dead are disinterested in it. I am, etc., BREAD PRODUCER.