FINEST GRADE BUTTER

Sun (Auckland), Volume III, Issue 755, 30 August 1929, Page 10

FINEST GRADE BUTTER

DAIRYING OFFICIALS’ DISPUTE SOUTH ISLAND OPINIONS Press Association DUNEDIN, Thursday. Replying to telegraphed statements by Mr. W. A. lorns, chairman of the Dairy Board, regarding dairy produce contracts and graders, the secretary of the South Island Dairy Association, Mr. Wight, states that while efforts were made by a section of the industry prior to the establishment of the board to get the dairy division to adopt finest grade, it was a fact that only when the board made representations that the division agreed. Some years earlier the director of the division expressed the view’ that as long as the producers had no control over the minimum prices at the other end it was perhaps unwise to adopt a fresh grade. In June last Mr. lorns himself was reported as stating he was opposed to finest grade. Mr. Wight admitted that the old contracts needed revision, but said there was nothing to warrant the proposal to make finest grade the basis of the new’ contracts. If first grade had been left as the basis with a provision for extra price for the higher grade southern producers would support the proposal, but they were not accepting a standard contract compelling them to take less than the market value. With regard to the statement that 400,000 boxes of next season’s butter had been sold at a price based on finest grade, Mr. Wight said if factory companies chose to make such terms it was their own business, but it afforded no reason why a national body elected in the interests of the whole industry should approve a contract manifestly unfair. Southern producers had no doubt that the object of the contracts was to force down the market value of produce and that the exporters’ association hoped to get the assistance of the board to achieve that end. The Marketing Association was approached two years ago to join the Exporters’ Association, but declined and was notconsulted about the contracts.