GUARANTEED FRUIT PRICES

Evening Post, Volume CXXII, Issue 27, 31 July 1936, Page 8

GUARANTEED FRUIT PRICES

are of their own creation. We have our associations and our federation, but each man is a law unto himself. Some speak one way, and act the other. After ihe cyclone last summer one orchardist in Hawke's Bay—an advocate of local I control of sales—dumped sixty bushels of Gravoustein apples into a trader's shop in Napier at Is per bushel, and, of course, that grower and others like him, glutted the market there and in oilier centres for weeks afterwards. I fear that fruitgrowers cannot be trusted to market their own. products satisfactorily. I

One phase of the matter that demands urgent consideration is the proper, method of advertising fruit. The consuming public still consider fruit as a luxury rather than as a necessity— a fad rather than a food. I have seen very little advertising of fruit in New Zealand that impressed me as being likely to encourage sales.

"Vocis" seems to imply that all orchardists voted for the Labour Government and guaranteed prices all round. I do hot believe that guaranteed prices for fruit, promised or implied, was the issue that influenced the vote of those orchardists who did vote Labour. However, now that the industry has expressed itself as anxious to have a guaranteed price scheme, it might be helpful if growers were invited to offer their, suggestions to the Fruitgrowers' Federation, which might find a few grains among the chaff.—l am, etc., FREDERICK H. REID.

(To thp Etlitnr l ! (To the Editoi.) j Sir—l was rather surprised at the j tone of the letter written on this sub-: ject by "Vocis." It is regrettable, course, that the Government cannot promise a guaranteed price for fruit before 1938, but every practical man knows that our industry presents most; complex problems. Some of our largest and most influential growers expressed the view to me months ago that the Government simply could not guarantee fruit prices. The reasons are obvious. There are many varieties, sizes, and grades, of apples and pears, and their values vary according to supply and demand. In addition, the weather, i unfortunately, is still with many people almost as important a factor in fruit consumption as it is in fruit producUO wv, *v r- ...,■„ When the Government decided to first give assistance to the dairying industry that industry was certainly believed to be in greater need than the fruit industry, which, erroneously we know, was repeatedly described as the one primary industry that was not being hit by the slump. Fruitgrowers' have been in Queer Street for some1 years. How some have managed exist bents me. I think ihc federation officials, both at headquarters and at i the branches, deserve credit for the! manner in which they have met the j situation. and helped individual ! growers to scrape along. j Many of the fruitgrowers' troubles!.