ESTIMATING EXPORT.

Star (Christchurch), Volume LXVI, Issue 20359, 17 July 1934, Page 8

ESTIMATING EXPORT.

Difficulties of Fruit Growers. SHIPS COMING IN BALLAST. The difficulties of estimating the fruit crop for export and of arranging for shipping space some four months before the fruit is ready were outlined by officers of the Fruit Export Control Board at the conference of Canterbury fruitgrowers to-day. It was stated that many- of the ships nowadays came out from England in ballast, as New Zealand was not importing nearly as much as it was exporting, and the shipping companies required either that the onewav space should be filled or paid foe.

Growers would have to give more reliable information concerning the amount likely to be exported, said the chairman of the board (Mr H. E. Stephens). Frequent revisions of the total should be communicated to the board, as the latter had to give its estimate of space to the shipping companies at least four months before the fruit was ready. The board did not wish to saddle growei's w-ith the cost of unfilled space, and was desirous of avoiding the hard and fast Australian system whereby individual growers whose crops did not come up to expectations had to pay for the unfilled space or find some other cargo to fill it. Influence of Weather. That weather conditions in Canterbury over the last three or four seasons had made it very difficult to estimate the crop was a statement by Mr J. W. M’Leod, w-ho said that a heavy frost four years ago, just when the shipping estimates were being made up. had upset calculations. Growers in Papanui could not guarantee to have a particular size of fruit, and this year erratic booking would have to be expected owing to growers’ low financial position. Growers appreciated the manner in which the board had met them w-ith the bookings this season, as the depression v-as nothing to what the grow-ers had had to contend with in the last four years. The secretary of the board stated that the export system was almost perfect, and far in advance of that operating in Tasmania. The board based its shipping estimates on averages, and it was expected that one and a half million cases would go overseas next season. Canterbury had estimated that its export last season w-ould be 15,000 cases, but the board, in acting on other advice, had made provision for 25,000 cases. As a matter of fact, 27,000 cases were sent from this province.