HOME PRODUCTION OF MEAT URGED IN UNITED KINGDOM

Wanganui Chronicle, 28 April 1949, Page 5

HOME PRODUCTION OF MEAT URGED IN UN ITED KINGDOM

LONDON, April 27 (Reed 7.5 pm). —Writing in the “Daily Telegraph" Walter Elliot, former Conservative Minister of Agriculture, points out that British farms are today producing 500,QU0 tons less meat a year than was the case before the war, or more than the total yearly Argentine meat shipments to Britain.

Even assuming that Argentine sends, next year the full amount promised, says Elliot, British meat imports will not total more than 865,000 tons, compared with more than 1,000,090 tons in the year before the war.

Elliot strongly criticises the Government’s failure to encourage home production of meat, and particularly what he alleges to be th e failure of the authorities to organise the restoration of Britain's pastures. He points out that the Government Committee on Productivity claimed that the country could save £40,000,000 a year in foreign exchange by increasing the home grass crop. If such a saving is possible, Mr. Elliot asks why it cannot be used to buy extra quantities of imported feeding stuffs and so build up Britain’s stocks of poultry and pigs. Elliot also claims that an immediate survey of Britain's stock population should be undertaken so that the balance between the various branches of livestock farming can be restored. The demand for such survey, he states, has been put before the Government again and again and refused because the Government always claims that it can improve the country’s meat supplies by concluding fresh overseas agreements. “We produce here in this country better than anywhere else on earth the raw material for beef and mutton, lamb and veal—which is grass,” says Elliot. "Grass is the greatest crop grown in this country. Then let the Ministers let the grass grow, so to speak, under their feet. But let is be actually instead of figuratively.” —Special Correspondent N.Z.P.A.