MEAT BOARD PROBLEM

Press, Volume C, Issue 29516, 18 May 1961, Page 13

MEAT BOARD PROBLEM

Competition In ( Industry To maintain the competitive element among those who processed the fanners’ | products and among those who transported them had been one of the greatest single problems in policy for the Meat Producers’ Board, said the chairman of the board (Mr J. D. Ormond), addressing the farmers’ conference at Canterbury Agricultural College, Lincoln.: yesterday. Mr Ormond said it was the traditional policy of the sheepfarmers that private trading, as distinct from industry ownership, was the system they wanted. Mr Ormond said the board had over the years enforced the open-door policy, under which the right was preserved for the owner of livestock to have his stock slaughtered and the products made available for sale as he wished. The board had considered it a primary policy to maintain as many channels as possible through which the producer could sell his product. In doing so some very real difficulties had been encountered, but it was vital, because only in this way could it be ensured that the producer got the fullest possible value for his livestock.

Here, incidentally, said Mr Ormond, the farmer cooperatives played their part. Their trading not only gave their members full market realisation, but it was one more yardstick for measuring the fairness or otherwise of meat schedules, and it was a channel by which market requirements could be reflected back directly to the producer. Their operations and experience could also have salutary effect on producers who might otherwise be disposed to take an unbalanced view of the trade as a whole. Asked whether the board might be able to do something about the sale of lamb in the United Kingdom at a price which might be beyond the average person’s pocket, Mr Ormond said that in 1949 he had proposed that producers should have an outlet in the United Kingdom, but it had been rejected. He now believed that as the cooperatives had grown they should have the opportunity for direct trading in the United Kingdom.