STATEMENT DENIED

Timaru Herald, Volume CLIII, Issue 22491, 28 January 1943, Page 4

STATEMENT DENIED

Grain Merchants’ Views Refuted EXPLANATION BY FIELDS SUPERINTENDENT (N.Z.P.A.) CHRISTCHURCH, Jan. 27. A denial that the Canterbury Production Council has requested an increased production of Garton oats made by Mr R. P. Connell, Fields Superintendent of the Department of Agriculture, Christchurch, in commenting on the statement on oats marketing by Mr A. H. Spratt, president of the North Canterbury Grain Merchants’ Association. Mr Connell also suggested other factors than those mentioned in the present market position. Mr Connell said that after consultation with the National Council of Primary Production, the Minister of Agriculture and Marketing, the Hon. J. G. Barclay, in a statement last March said: “Last year (1940-41) 306,944 acres were grown, of which 71,758 acres were tor threshing. The estimate of the total sowings this season (1941-42) was 275,000 acres. It is advisable that the plantings in the coming year should be maintained at least at the level of this year. “Such advice had been and still was sound in spite of any interim developments,” said Mr Connell, “as the great bulk of the oats crop grown for feeding livestock and kept in reserve for such a purpose did not need to be wasted while the livestock population continued at the present level. “The North Canterbury Production Council had appointed a special committee to formulate a programme and bring it under the notice of farmers,” said Mr Connell. “As a result of the deliberations of the committee, of which Mr Spratt was a member, an appeal to grow Garton or any other oats was made by the Council. The committee considered that it could not promulgate a definite programme except at the risk of contributing to the position such as had now developed. “It may be said safely that the present condition of the market for Garton oats is due in part to factors not mentioned in Mi* Spratt’s statement,” Mr Connell continued. “The mild winter resulted in the area of oats utilised completely for feeding off being less extensive than in a harder winter. The favourable season has given yields greater than could safely be expected, and the returns that seemed in prospect were probably brought about by sowings additional to what would have been made had the prospective returns been less attractive.”