Support sought for meat levy

Press, 21 April 1979, Page 2

Support sought for meat levy

Farmers are being asked to support plans to put a levy on ail meat to help give producers more stable returns. The levy could mean a rise in the price of meat to the consumer. A remit to this effect will be presented by the Amuri branch of the national conference of Federated Farmers in Wellington. At present, only beef is levied to support the Meat Board’s stabilisation account, and the Amuri branch intended that a levy on mutton and lamb also support this account. But at yesterday’s meeting of the meat and wool section of North Canterbury Federated Farmers, it was decided that

funding the; stabilisation account was too complex, and that the money would be better suited going to the board’s work.

The levy equid increase the price of meat to the consumer if producers do not absorb the cost themselves. Some members of the section felt that housewives were unlikely to accept such an increase.

The section voted to ask the Meat Board to reappraise its levying and stabilisation procedures with a view to embodying a levy on all meat, whether for export or local markets, and to bring the skimming procedures into line with the wool industry’s.