BUTTER MARKETS

Manawatu Standard, Volume XLV, Issue 120, 23 April 1925, Page 5

BUTTER MARKETS

NEW ZEALAND COMPETITION^ FEARED BY AMERICANS. (By Electric Telegraph.—Copyright.) Received April 23, 8.50 a»m. WASHINGTON, April 21. Declaring that the cost of producing butter in Denmark, New Zealand, and Australia was greatly below the production costs in the United States, which averages between 59.7 and 61.5 cents per pound, the American Farm Bureau Association has petitioned the Federal Tariff Commission to recommend President Coolidge to raise the tariff on butter from eight to twelve cents petpound. The association alleges that New Zealand is potentially a greater competitor than Denmark the latter probably having reached its maximum production, while the New Zealand production had increased practically 120 per cent, in the last seven years and is likely to be doubled in the next decade. The association’s statement alleges that Denmark and New Zealand are in a position to dump butter on to the American market with impunity. The vast amount of storage butter in the United States has been consumed and the country is now down to a normal basis with a much better prospect of the American farmer getting the cost of production for his butter-fat. The United States output of this commodity, however, will decrease rapidly unless more adequate protection is afforded. Professor Mackin, of tho University of Wisconsin, testifying before the Tariff Commission, said he had spent throe months in New Zealand in 1924 studying tho dairying methods, and lie was convinced that the butter producers there were far ahead of the Americans in the matter of modern methods of producing and business arrangements. Therefore they were able to market butter at a lower cost than was possible in the United States. President Munn, of the National Dairy Council, testified that although the United States produced annually 2,000.000,000 pounds of butter, the importation of 25,000,000 pounds had been sufficient to break the domestic market at various times from five to seventeen cents per pound.—A. and N.Z. cable