Royal help sought for farmers

Press, 12 February 1986, Page 3

Royal help sought for farmers

A Lincoln College agricultural economist, Dr Alastair McArthur, sent a letter to the Queen yesterday to ask her to use her Royal influence to change British agricultural policy to help New Zealand farmers. Dr McArthur was born in Britain and came to New Zealand in 1949. He has been at Lincoln College for 24 years and is a reader in agricultural economics. He said yesterday that the Queen was a large landowner and as such benefited a great deal from the Common Agricultural Policy of the European Economic Community. The policy restricts imports of New Zealand lamb and butter under a quota system. Dr McArthur told the Queen in his letter that British farmers were producing surpluses because of artificially high farm prices caused by subsidies and the quota system. The surpluses were dumped on the world market, to the detriment of New Zealand. Dr McArthur asked the

Queen to set an example as a British landowner by reducing production on her estates of products such as sugar beet, dairy products, beef, and wheat. He told the Queen that during her New Zealand visit later this month she would be struck by the effect E.E.C. protectionism was having on the morale of local farmers. Few sheep farmers would make ends meet this year with lambs fetching only $l2 each, he said.

"The E.E.C. is costing Australia $1 billion annually in export returns and is costing New Zealand at least as much.

“But the damage to New Zealand is greater because this is a smaller country,” he said. Dr McArthur said price support made millionaires out of large farmers, but was not sufficient to lift the incomes of small farmers.

“I regret to tell you that by supporting a policy of free trade in agricultural products you would be reducing the wealth of the great British landowners,” he said in his letter.

“From Down Under, assistance to farming communities appears to result in the rich getting richer at the expense of the British taxpayer and consumer, and at the cost of old Commonwealth allies,” he wrote.

Dr McArthur signed the letter “Your most loyal subject,” and told the Queen the political skill required by Britain to reform Common Agricultural Policy would need the support of the head of the Commonwealth, “support which I hope you will give.” Dr McArthur said last evening that he realised he would probably receive just a formal letter of acknowledgement and he did not expect the Queen would want to meet him when she visited New Zealand. He said he wrote the letter to bring the plight of New Zealand to the attention of the average British citizen who probably thought that New Zealand was not affected by the agricultural policy and that its farm products were being diverted to Japan and the Far East.