PROPOSED FARMERS’ CO-OPERATIVE BACON COMPANY..

Waikato Argus, Volume XXX, Issue 4729, 14 June 1911, Page 2

PROPOSED FARMERS’ CO-OPER-ATIVE BACON COMPANY..

To the Editor. Sir, —ln your issue of yesterday are two letters on the above subject, and, though the question has been pretty well thrashed out, and will be further ventilated tomorrow, there are some points raised that call for attention. Mr F. R, Bust starts out with the assertion “that he has always been in favour of co-operation.’’ but the whole tone of his letter is dead against it. He reminds farmers that they have had, for some time past, and still have a very remunerative market for their pork, and, farther on, reminds farmers that they get 4d per lb fur pork. Now these are in correct and misleading statements, as every farmer is only too well aware. The farmers have not had a very remunerative price for pork, neither have they received 4d per lb, or they would not, at the present moment, bo endeavouring to establish co-oper-ation in the business. So far as the present price of 4d per lb is concerned, it has only been offered for a abort time during the early part of the season, and again, during the last week or two, but, for the best months of the season, when dairy fed pigs were most plentiful. tUd per lb was the beat price paid, and even at that price, the doors of the largest Waikato bacon firm were closed for some weeks. So much for the remunerative prices the farmer is receiving for his pork. Another correspondent, “One Who Knows,” puts the position, “Is it wise for farmers to take up the business themselves”? and further on states “the whole history of the bacon business is one of failure,” and again “when vou turn to Taranaki

you find nothing but failure on the part of the bacon companies’’: also, “that £50,000 capital is required to successfully carry on the business.” The most complete reply to these remarks is given in the history of the Inglewood Co-operative Bacon Company. a small concern carried on by farmers with a total capita! of £6OOO, of which only £3BOO has been paid up. 'I his company has been running for ten years. It handled in 1010, tiOOO pigs, paid a dividend of 5 per cent, on the capital invested and paid its shareholders g of a penny per 11) above the market price for pork, and had the capital of the company been larger, with less Interest to pay for bank overdraft, it would have paid its pig supplying shareholders id l>er lb above market rates. Now this is what Waikato farmers should endeavour to do, and if they work unitedly together it is well within their reach. I have already shown that the loss incurred by the farmers of ’ aikato and adjoining districts through this annual drop in the price of pork, amounts to over £7OOO per annum, but if we succeed in co-operation as the Inglewood farmers have done, we should, with our larger turnover and business, save the whole of this sum, and probably get even a better return than our fellow settlers on the West Coast, 1 am, etc., E. C. SHEPHERD.