FRUIT GROWERS' NEEDS.

Thames Star, Volume LXIV, Issue 17972, 22 August 1930, Page 5

FRUIT GROWERS' NEEDS.

EVIDENCE TO COMMITTEE.

Standardisation Essential.

VIEWS OF EXPERTS.

VALUE OF SIZING.

(By Telegrraph—Press Association.) WELLINGTON, Aug. 21.

Further evidence on the marketing of fruit and vegetables was heard yesterday by the Industries and Commerce Committee of the House.

Mr Kinnaird, representing the Central Otago Fruit-growers' Association, was of the opinion that the basis of standardisation and the ultimate stabilisation of the industry lay in the elimination of small fruit, and he gave the sizes that had proved in Otago to be economic from the point of view of the grower, retailer and consumer.

He emphasised the success of cooperation in Otago, and it was a recommendation from growers there that every assistance should be given by the Government towards the establishment of co-operative concerns owned entirely by the growers themselves. Evidence was given by Thomas Eldridge on behalf of the Christchurch Retailers' Association. He asked that the Government should regulate the export of fruit and so as to ensure that sufficient of all grades should be retained for local consumption. They claimed that too much first grade fruit was going out of the Dominion. The selection and marketing, both of fruit and vegetables was advocated, and the repacking of all Island oranges showing more than 10 per cent, of waste. An inquiry should be held by the Government into the banana trade, as it was considered that the landed cost was too.high. '