PIG PRODUCTION MAY REACH MILLION MARK

Chronicle (Levin), 20 June 1947, Page 3

PIG PRODUCTION MAY REACH MILLION MARK

■Press Assodhtiofi

Bv Telearavh-

NEW PLYMOUTH, June 19. A prediction that pig production in New Zealand would iucrease from about, 600,000 killed this year to the pre-war level of a million pigs yearly by September, 1948, was made by the Superintendent of the Pig Industry (Mr. H. M. Pierson) at the aunual meeting of tlie New Zealand Pig Breeders' Association. at New Plymouth today. His reason for the prediction, he said, was that production rose enormously in March and April of this year. During the last five or six years when the industry was steadily deelining New Zealand had nothing to boast of, said Mr. Pierson. Less than a third of the Dominion's pig-meat was going overseas and the remainder was being consumed in New Zealand. The presidenL of.tlie Association (Mr, S. M. Whitelock) said the decrease m •production of pigs was not as ,bad as it was made to appear. It had to be remembered that dairy cows had decreased by 200,000 while the aniount of milk being used for the dried milk industry was equivalent to a reduction of a further 200,000 cows. Besides this the drying of buttermilk was inereasing, especially in the north. All these factors contributed to the decrease in the amount of food available for pigs and to the number of carcases exported. It was questionable, he declared, whether it was better to dry buttermiiK than to nse it for pig production. - - - A remit from Taranaki suggesting' a request for an increased price was lost. The remit asked that in order to stimulate the production of pig-meat for Britain and to put the industry on a sound basis the Association sliould urgently request the Government to raise immediately the price of pork to lOd per lb.