PARADOX OF RATIONING AND MEAT WASTE

Chronicle (Levin), 27 June 1947, Page 2

PARADOX OF RATIONING AND MEAT WASTE

"Hundrecls of tons of good meat are being wasted in the Waikato beeause of go-slow tactics of beef butchers 111 the Waikato and Auckland districts, " stated a prominent Waikato farmer visiting Feilding. "We have meat r^tioning in New Zealand to enable us to send to the Old Country additionaJ supplies and it scerns strange that this should persist in the knowledge that so much good meat is being wasted simply beeause it cannot be handled at the works. • ^ • Farmers having cattle xeady for , tJie works find that it is diflieult enough to secure accommodation for fat 'bullocks and are t'old by graders that they must hold on to their cattle beeause of the slow killing rate. We know nothing about the dispute between the slauglit-er.-nen and the proprietors of the works but we do kuow that as a result our bullocks are held up and this results in loss of weight which means loss of good meat for expurt. '"The position is even more serious in the caes of eull, or boner cattle. Hundreds of head of such cattle ready for the works are obliged to be kept back beeause they cannot be dealt with as readily as tliev would be under nor mai conditions. These cattle go back very quickly, losing weiglit and condi tion which reprcsents loss of valuable meat* which the Old Country could weii do with. "It seems strange that no serious eliLort has been made to deal with vvhatis a very serious situation, serious for the reason of the very substantial loss . of meat," he said. "Meat rationing would not appear to be a serious matter to the country when so much good meat is allowed without any protest from the powers that be, to be wasted. It is high time some realistic action was evi dent to deal with this paradoxical situation. ' '