FAT LAMB TRADE

Evening Post, Volume CXXVI, Issue 155, 29 December 1938, Page 12

FAT LAMB TRADE

ARGENTINE HOPES

BUILDING UP IIUALITY

(Special to the 'E^eninp Post."*

PALMERSTON N., This Pay

The likelihood oS the Argentine being a serious compw Jtitoi with New Zealand on the British fai lamb market is visualised bj/ Dr. C P MeMeekan, of the start" oi Massey Agricultural College. wfho returned last week aftei an abselice ol 2^ years abroad. In an interview he said oe did not want to go into details except to say that the Argentine could ana would produce lam ii s 'that would compete successfully wiitib New Zealand. Dr McMeekari sp^ut two and a haif tuonths in the Argeuttine. going there 'ai t^ie request of the Argentine Sociad Rural and Argentine Co-operative Meat Producers with a view to his suggesting to the farmfiars of the country how improvements could be made in quality. The position, roughly, was that until the imposition by Britain of a quota on Argentine beef the country was not very interested in the fatlamb trade, but wij;b beef production curtailed they wers! turning to other avenues. The Argentine had beea allotted a quota of 4,000,000 fat lambs a year and was endeavouring to fill it with a product thiat was equally as good as New Zealamd turned out. j While in the Argentine Dr. MeI Meekan judged th/e "block tests" for fat lambs and pigsi There were 500 lambs and 1000 pijgs in each test, the object being to demonstrate how quality can be improved. The carcasses were judged on SSmithfield standards and Dr. McMeeksrn said he was presented with no mjfjari task. The Argentine at the present t time had no export market for pigsJ The delegates to the trade conference in England had been so concerneji with the quota impositions coverini? beef that they had sacrificed everytuJing that affected bacon and pork. Dr. McMeekan* described the Argentine as very suif.ed to production. "luch of the country was relatively undevi sloped, so that there were incalculably prospects ahead of it as a food-prodpeing State.