Difficulties of the Home Bacon Industry

Manawatu Times, Volume 62, Issue 19, 23 January 1937, Page 12 (Supplement)

Difficulties of the Home Bacon Industry

SHORTAGE OF 300,000 PIGS. LONDON, Dec. 26. Efforts to eSt»bHsh-the~fcome -bacon industry on a. sound paying basis are meeting with a number of difflcult.es, the latest of which is the rejection by the Bacon Marketing Board of the 1937 pig contract because the numbers offered fell short by 300,000 of the minimum stipulated, 2,200,000. The pig marketing scheme first started in 1933, and the success that has attended its efforts is provided by a comparison between home production this year and in 1930. More than double the amount of bacon and ham i, produced to-day, representing onethird of the consumption m the bni.ed Kingdom. This pig marketing scheme applies only to pigs sold for bacon by registered pig producers either to registered curers or to the board, which prescribes the contract terms under which bacon pigs are sold. Registered curers cannot, subject to certain exceptions, sell bacon from pigs produced in Great Britain unless those pigs were bought under contract confirmed by the board. The contract requires the registered producer to deliver an agreed number of pigs each month. This year about 50 curers had obtained no pigs under contract and many of the other 550 had fewer than they wanted to keep their factories going economically through the year. The result is that pigs will be bought on a ••free” market, but beyond that it is difficult to say what will happen. As neither curers nor farmers wish to see the marketing scheme abandoned, it is likely that the marketing organisation will be rebuilt on a more enduring basis. . .

The price of bacon is high in Great Britain to-day due, it is said by retailers, to quota restrictions-on imports. It is agreed that the quality of British pigs and bacon has improved since the early days of the scheme. Farmers are doing their utmost to produce pigs which will grade well at the factories and earn a bonus.