POTATO EXPORTS

Hokitika Guardian, 6 February 1928, Page 4

POTATO EXPORTS

INCREASE OF DUTY IN AUSTRALIA.

SYDNEY, Jan. 2G.

The enthusiasm of the dairy farmers of Australia, particularly those in New South Wales, when it was decided to increase substantially the duty on imported butter was remarkable. One would have imagined that this alone was needed to save the industry from ruin. Thanksgiving meetings have been held and New Zealand has been roundly condemned for insisting tipon its rights—six months’ notice. Now the Tariff Board has made another recommendation aimed at New Zealand—this time at the potatogrowers. The existing duty is £l a ton and the application was for an increase to £4. The Board compromised by recommending £2 10s, and incidentally criticised the inefficiency of the industry.

The Board states that the evidence placed before it indicated that the only means available to growers to recoup themselves for losses sufferer owing to drought and disease in crops was to take advantage of high prices brought about by a shortage of supplies. Half the potatoes consumed in New South Wales had been, and still were, supplied by Victoria and Tasmania. A shortage of production in Tasmania or New South Wales would mean higher prices for the \ ictorian growers. Similarly the failure of the crops in Victoria would mean better returns for the Tasmanian growers. Fears were expressed that unless the duties were increased growers in New Zealand would take advntage of the favourable market and ship quantities of potatoes to Sydney, thus depriving the Australian grower of the higher market. As bearing on the position, the report points out that the average yield to the acre in Tasmania for the period of 1915 to 1925 was 2.50 tons, ns compared with a corresponding average of 5.58 tons in New Zealand.

However, the Board lrnnklv states that in its opinion low prices fn the past have been due, not to importations from overseas but to competition within the Commonwealth. It is said that the unsatisfactory position of the growers is brought about to a very great extent by lack of organisation and somewhat inefficient methods of production, especially in Tasmania. Instead of growers in one State there should he an organisation which could arrange for the disposal of the potatoes in a systematic manner in the respective States at prices that would assure a reasonable profit.