N.Z. NOW BIGGEST EXPORTER OF MEAT TO BRITAIN

Wanganui Chronicle, 13 December 1949, Page 5

N.Z. NOW BIGGEST EXPORTER OF MEAT TO BRITAIN

Some Aspects Of Markets As Seen By Food Ministry Controller

LONDON, Dec. 12 (Rec. 6 pm).—lt was revealed by the Controller of Meat and Livestock at the Ministry of Food, Sir Henry Turner, that New Zealand is now the biggest single exporter of meat to Britain which, considering how the Dominion kept up the quality of her lambs, in particular, was a pretty fair record for a country with substantially less than two million people.

Australia’s tremendous efforts, he said, would take a long time to develop. There was no doubt that South American countries eould provide more meat if they wished, but they Had developed considerably on the industrial front, and their increasing populations were eating more meat per head than before the war. Africa might eventually become a supplier. “But whichever way you look at it I think we must accept the view that there seem to be opportunities which are practically unlimited for extension of fat stock production in Britain,” said Sir Henry.

Sir Henry warned British farmers to prepare for the return of the customer to supremacy in determining the kind of meat wanted in the shop. "I would have thought that after 10 years of control and lumping together of all the varying qualities in one grade,” said Sir Henry, “that the public’s powers of judgment would have been destroyed. During recent weeks, however, when we have be'en able to issue rather more meat than we had been issuing earlier this year, we have Come to realise that we were wrong in thinking this,"

Retailers had reported that as supplies had increased the public had become more “choosy,” and Sir Henry

expected to see this tendency increase. He was sure that much more attention would have to be paid to encouraging farmers to produce the weight and type of carcase which the public wanted.

Sir Henry said that although Britain’s cattle herds were about 20 per cent, higher in numbers than before the war, she was only getting about 85 per cent, of pre-war quantities of beef from these herds. This beef reduction of cattle due to a higher proportion of cattle in dairy herds partly to the fact that herds contain ed, for the time being, a greater proportion of young cattle, but mainly it was due to a longer fattening period. Shcey flocks had reached three-quart-ers of the pre-war numbers, and pig herds nearly two-thirds. Sir Henry referred to the problem of the rising world standard of living and the rising world population. In Britain alone there were two million more people to feed than before the war. To provide for this population and to give everyone not less than the average consumption before the war, Britain would require an addition of GOO,OOO tons of carcase meat to her supplies, an addition of more than one-third of the present total supplies. “I should add, however, that I know of no other foodstuff where price has such a direct influence on the quantity that the public will buy,’* he said. “The retail price today is kept down by subsidy, and it is not easy to assess what would be the effect on demand if a subsidy were removed.”—Special N.Z.P.A. Correspondent.