WHY RASPBERRIES ARE SO SHORT

Chronicle (Levin), 21 February 1947, Page 7

WHY RASPBERRIES ARE SO SHORT

■ ' ' , ' . ' i : I : ' - Press ■■■■ Association

By , Telegraph-

CHIviyTCH URCH, Feb. 19. ( Tlie present system of J ceiling;price oiitroi was the maia reasqn why there • ere practically 110 raspberries availidIo to the North island public in the iiops this season, said the president of ihe Dominion Council of Commercial Jardeuers, Mr. B. V. Cooksley, of Wel.iigton, when addressing grosvers at Christchurch last night. The Price I'ribunal, he said, ffxed maxiniuin prices vhich took 110 account of present-day •roduction costs. The result was that in increasing number of growers were lot replacing their canes. Replacement •anes today cost £1 per 100, compared -.vitli eight shillings in 19-12, and it was iccessary for the canes to be in the • round tliree years before reaching full production. It could readilv bc scen iow any discouragement to growers ollset production, not for oue season alone. •»ut for several. Mr. Cooksley said he could speak jiilv for the North Island, but he beiieved that Houth Island growers were ifTected in the same wav. The danger of non-replacement of (•anes was not the only oue to tlie future supply. Mauy growers still pro ilucing raspberries had no other choice than to sell direct to the public — whichthev were permitted to do — so thev could obtain tho retail price. The wholesale ceiling at the ^market was totaily inadequate to cover production costs. Although it was much easier for the grower to consign his crop to the wliolesale market in lots of "50 tins or more than to liddle about with. indi vidual saies of a couple of pounds at his garden, he had uo option but to secure the best return he could by what ever means were legally available. When the Price Tribunhl fixed the present prices in 1941, the growers vvarned it, said Mr. Cooksley, that its action would be against the consumers' intcrests. The growers applied again to the Tribunal in December last, but the only result was a minor adjustment of Houth Island prices. As an exainple of increased costs, the speaker said that the picking rates for female workers in the Wairarapa had increased from Is an hour in 1912 to 1« 9d, a rise of 39 per cent., but the maximum wholesale price in tins for growers had risen only from ls lid per pound to ls 3d, or 11 per cent., over this period. Other costs besides labour had increased, including tins, from ls (5d each to 2s Id each, and punnets from £3 15s a 1000 to £6 5s, over the same period. Tbe growers were not "squealing" about the increased costs. All that thev usked was that these should be equally bomc ill along the line from grower to consumer, or, in other vvords, from the ground to the rasp-berry-jam jar. Hnfortunatel.v, the grouad -now had fewer caues in it, and Ihe jaru jart. wero ampty. Had the raspberries been "freed," he was assured by a cempeteiit auctioa-

eering autliority that the price would have found its own leA-el — and not a par-ticularly high oue— ^because of the factors of what the housewife vras prepared to pay and, for jam purposes, how much sugar she hads