NOT ENCOURAGED

Hauraki Plains Gazette, Volume 52, Issue 3284, 5 July 1943, Page 5

NOT ENCOURAGED

POSITION OF THE FARMER MR SUTHERLAND’S OPINION PIG PRODUCTION QUESTION Surely the primary producers were entitled to more consideration from the Government, said Mr A. S. Sutherland, M.P. for Hauraki, speaking in the House of Representatives recently. Much had been heard about the subsidies received by the farmers, but the subsidies the farmers had received were modest compared with those given to other industries and the other industries were by no means as important as the farming industry. During the last three years the subsidies given to the coal mining industry amounted to £750,000. Lack of Encouragement

Mr Sutherland complained of the lack of encouragement given to the pig industry in New Zealand. On several occasions he had urged the Minister to give more consideration to this industry and in March last he had asked Minister to go into the question of making cheaper pig meal available to the farmers. He also urged that a higher price should be given for pig meats but the Minister turned a deaf ear to these proposals. The Minister of Marketing had said that the country needed 1'50,000 more pigs, but unless the Minister altered his methods he would get fewer pigs. At the time he advised the Minister pigs were plentiful and 1 cheap but pig feed was scarce. That was the time when the Minister should have come in and provided cheap pig meal from the south. He could -have bought thousands of sacks of oats. Oats mixed with barley, half and half, made a good pig meal. Interfered With Market The Minister had interfered with the market and that had had a very unsettling effect on the pig market. He tied the market down at 7id per

lb., and anyone who has raised fat pigs in winter time knew that the work could not be done at that price. This time last year, or a little later, he, Mr Sutherland, had got 9d a lb. for pigs off a property in which he was interested and he did not make much then. The Minister left the chopper market open, and the effect was farreaching. Many of the pigs sold as choppers should have gone into the breeding pens to keep the pig population up.