LOSS BY TOBACCO FARMERS

Press, Volume XCV, Issue 28260, 24 April 1957, Page 17

LOSS BY TOBACCO FARMERS

Damage By Floods Last Week

(New Zealand Press Association) NELSON, April 23. A start is being made today to assess the damage to tobacco leaf in the 11 growers’ bulk store sheds entered by water during the Motueka valley floods last week. This assessment is being carried out by Mr C. E. Pethybridge, Motueka manager of W. D. and H. O. Wills, Ltd., on behalf of all the companies interested, to provide information for the Earthquake and War Damage Commission, whose officers have been investigating flood damage in the district. Mr Pethybridge said today that the loss in relation to the district crop would not be great and would have little or no effect on the total leaf available. Some growers in the valley had their tobacco growing land damaged. “The floods will have no alarming effect on the year’s crop of tobacco (about 4,250,0001 b) but the loss suffered by some individual growers is disturbing to them,” said Mr W. Wills, president of the New Zealand Tobacco Growers’ Federation and member of the Tobacco Board today. He knew of two growers who would lose up to £5OO worth of leaf. Erosion would result in the loss of the use of some areas of tobacco growing land where the top soil had been washed off. In the Motueka valley that land was limited to the prime fertile flats and the loss of the use of only a few acres was a serious matter to a grower. One farmer in the Pangatotara area had lost the use of about six acres for tobacco growing. Most of the tobacco lands affected had only recently been disced and planted with a cover crop, leaving the top soil loose and easy for removal by flood waters. A fuller assessment of the total areas affected would be made after a meeting of valley farmers on Wednesday evening, Mr Wills said.