SURPLUSES IN MANY SORTS OF FOOD SAID TO BE PILING UP

Wanganui Chronicle, 31 May 1950, Page 5

SURPLUSES IN MANY SORTS OF FOOD SAID TO BE PILING UP

Proposed British Caribbean Federation.—Trinidad will ba.the capital: A report published by the Standing Closer Association Committee of the British Caribbean on March 30, 1950, recommended a British Caribbean Federation as “the shortest path towards a real political independence for British peoples of the region within the framework of British Commonwealth—what is meant, in fact, by ‘Dominion Status.’ This picture shows the palm-studded Maracas Bay, a wall-known week-end holiday resort for many Trinidadians.

Difficult Problem Faces International

Conference Of Producers

LONDON, May 30 (Rec. 6 pm).—ln different forms, tire main problem of International Federation of Agricultural Producers at Stockholm will be ,the loosening of the gap between the price of home produced food and the price of imported supplies, observes the “Farmers’ Weekly,” editorially.

The article go>cs on to say: “Surpluses of many products are piling up in different parts of the world. The United States Government has bought millions of tons of potatoes in order to ‘support’ the price to farmers and flow does not know what to do with their stocks, since the cost of mo.ving them to a dump is more than they are worth. There are millions of pounds of dried eggs which have been similarly bought and stored in order to take them off the market. And so on.

"In Europe, Holland and Denmark have built up tremendous exportable supplies, particularly of dairy produce and eggs. The Eire Minister* of Agriculture recently offered to flood this country with cream and butter, to bury us in bacon and swamp us with eggs.

“The position of such countries has been clearly put by Doctor Hannam himself, president of the I.F.A.P. and of the Canadian Federation of Agriculture. He said: ‘This question of exports and, more important, the questions of what we should do with surplus produce if the export market declines and how we would manage to hold security for our farmers, are problems you will be running into in many of your countries. There is already a surplus of 20,000,0001 b. of butter. Canada knows that European countries do not want that surplus released overseas at prices below those which producers in other countries are receiving. The Canadian Government bought 10,000,0001 b. of canned milk last year, just to save the price

of that product from collapse. Some of it has gone to the International Children's Emergency Fund, but there is still seme left! “ 'Those surpluses at the moment are not serious, but they are threatening and farm prices in Canada are already declining, while costs of production remain high. A similar situation obtains in the United States, but the disparity there is even higher.’ There is here,” the “Farmers’ Weekly” continues, “a very serious threat to the stability of agricultural trade everywhere, and particularly to our own price structure. Overseas countries, such as the United States and Canada, can hardly be expected to go on supporting farm prices indefinitely, especially if such support means accumulation of increasing surpluses, which they cannot dispose of. The temptation for them to dump, that is export at knockout prices, is obvious. Equally obvious is the temptation to accept such dumping in a country where the cost of living, the cost of food and of food subsidies, is of first political importance.

“No sane person wants to see a return of international food dumping. It did no one any good, and, in the long run, stultified industry, as well as ruined agriculture. Yet the pressure of surpluses is piling up, and could very easily spill over—here!

“The I.F.A.P. was founded four years ago with the object of bringing order into international trade in agricultural produce, and the matter is imperative. The problem of surplus butter in Canada, or wheat in the United States, of eggs in Denmark, or milk in Holland is a problem for us as well as for those countries themselves. It presents I.F.A.P. with an extremely difficult and indeed crucial test.”— Special N.Z.P.A. Correspondent.