EGG SUPPLIES

Grey River Argus, 31 May 1943, Page 6

EGG SUPPLIES

“INEQUITABLE DISTRIBUTION." OAMARU, May 24. Asked to comment on the meeting convented by him in Dunedin last week, Mr. T. Gill (chairman of the New Zealand Poulty Board) said he was surprised that the group ol producers present should have expressed “strong dissatisfaction with the present methods .of marketing eggs.” . The distribution of eggs in Dunedin was more inequitable than in any other of the main centres, Mr. Gill said. In Christchurch, for instance, all eggs were sent to one special floor. From this central egg floor, priorities in distribution were arranged. The remaining eggs were then evenly rationed among the civilian population. Such distribution could not be carried out in Dunedin under present marketing conditions. Eggs that were handled by the four licensed egg merchants were rationed out among retailers, but eggs were also sold by poultry keepers direct to grocers. As the national representative of Otago egg producers, Mr. Gill explained, he had to choose between serving the national need and the particular interests of producers. The Poultry Board, as the National Egg Marketing Advisory Committee to the Minister of Marketing, had a duty to assist the Minister by tendering advice, and the members of the board had the right to expect producers to assist them in this matter. Repeatedly the Taieri-Dunedm group had been asked to suggest its own scheme so as to bring it into' line with those producers who had all along been quitely submitting to the unavoidable control that these difficult times demanded. It seemed that, the only solution of the problem was the establishment of a central egg floor. , Mr. Gill pointed out that, though the unsolved marketing problem was the root from which the “strong dissatisfaction’’ sprang, the meeting was not called to discuss marketing. Its purpose was to enlist the sup,port of the Taieri-Dunedin producers tor as organisation that, it was hoped, would embrace every registered producer in the Otago-Southland Province. In spite of opposition, the organisation had come fully into being, with an initial membership of nearly 600. The supreme govemng body of the association was a council comprising the ablest of the industry’s representatives from Invercargill to North Otago, Mr. D. Christie of Herbert, being the association s first president. This council would concern itself not onlv with marketing problems, but with problems of poultry foods, building materials for poultry houses, rehabilitation, finance for increased production, and similar matters.