DISPOSAL OF WHEAT.

Taranaki Daily News, 16 April 1921, Page 2

DISPOSAL OF WHEAT.

UNSATISFACTORY POSITION. FARMERS IN NEED OF CASH. Christchurch April 12. Wheat-growers are showing some concern owing to the slow realisation of their crop. The latest official figures suggest a sufficiency for the year, if not a very fair surplus, and such being the case there is no need for millers to buy beyond current requirements. There is a general belief that millers are adopting this policy, but inquiries among them show that this is not generally the case. The manager of one of the leading local firms stated to-day that he had bought supplies seven oi* eight months ahead, and said that all the wheat being offered by brokers was being accepted. This, he said, is the position so far, but it could scarcely continue. The whole of the season’s wheat was now, or would be. in a few weeks, available for disposal, and millers could scarcely be expected to finance the whole output, particularly when there was no obligation on them to do so. Certainly the %d per bushel per month storage would be saved by them, but this would not compensate for the very large amount of money involved in these purchases, requiring as they would very substantial interest payments. The conditions of sale under control provide for payment within 10 days. In pre-control days the arrangements between seller and purchaser occasionally provided for payment weeks and sometimes several months ahead.

Another factor tending to minimise, temporarily at any rate, the millers* purchasing power, is the lack of shipping. One large vessel, now in Lyttelton Harbor, should have sailed some days ago with flour for the North Island, and no fewer than eight vessels of one .company’s fleet had been held up in Auckland during the strike, vessels which, ni the ordinary course, would have been moving up the coast with flour aboard, if not actually unloaded at their destination. This flour is still at the mills instead of the cash for it being at the bankers.

The foregoing is the millers’ case. The grower on his part has grown the wheat under arrangement with the Government at a certain price. He is now prepared to deliver the goods, but there is no obligation on anyone to take them off his hands. Tn effect both the grower and the miller have done their parts. With the bedrock prices for other farm produce the farmer is urgently in need of his money. The delay in paying it might affect the area put in crop this year, as land cannot be prepared for nothing. Furthermore, growers might be tempted, should delivery be unduly delayed, to accept a penny or so a bushel less and sell the wheat as fowl feed and obtain the cash.