Fruitgrowers Seek Planned Marketing

Press, Volume C, Issue 29510, 11 May 1961, Page 20

Fruitgrowers Seek Planned Marketing

(New Zealand Press Association)

WELLINGTON, May 10.

If the whole of the apple and pear crop had to be marketed by growers competing against one another, without a marketing board and without organisation, it could only mean chaos in the fruit industry, and a falling-off in service to the consumer, the New Zealand Fruitgrowers’ Federation, Ltd., submitted to the Committee of Inquiry into apple and pear marketing today.

Within five years, New Zealand's apple and pear crop was expected to reach five million bushels, and without some form of central control and organisation, the handling of such a quantity of fruit would be well nigh impossible, the federation submitted. The federation said it wished to make it clear that its submissions were not intended to be an entire defence of Apple and Pear Board operations.

The federation was interested in the system of orderly marketing, a principle which any body of producers was fully entitled to enjoy. Without planned marketing,

growers and consumers alike would be at the mercy of speculation. Individuals would benefit, but more would suffer. No section would be more affected than the fruit industry. It had taken its whole history to attain its present standard of efficiency and stability. The federation was described in its submissions as the national organisation of the fruit-growing industry in New Zealand. Membership comprised 30 associations and societies representing 1800 growers.