GRAIN AND PRODUCE

Wairarapa Times-Age, 20 August 1938, Page 3

GRAIN AND PRODUCE

,CANTERBURY MARKETS INTEREST IN POTATOES (By Telegraph—Press Association.) CHRISTCHURCH, August 19. Chief interest in the Canterbury grain and produce markets is still in potatoes. Cabled information from Australia has encouraged and dashed by turns the hopes of growers and merchants that a market there would be opened to New Zealand potatoes, but now the consensus of opinion is that the possibility of anything being done is remote. Information received privately in Christchurch is that opposition to the lifting of the embargo comes not from a small section- of this interested in Australia, as some reports have indicated, but from a very large one which includes growers of Tasmania, Victoria, and New South Wales. The only result of all the talk that has been going on, says an Australian merchant in a letter, is likely to be more talk and a consequent weakening in the Australian market. If it happened that Australia did decide to admit New Zealand potatoes, merchants would be faced with another problem—that is, finding potatoes of good enough quality to satisfy the requirements of the Australian market. As one merchant said, it might be necessary to buy 4000 tons to export 1000, and the prospect of doing that is, of course, not attractive. The market has been practically at a standstill this week. The Wellington market is flooded and few orders have been coming from Auckland. The quotation remains at £2 10s a ton on trucks at handy stations. Seed wheat has continued to go out in good quantities, but the demand for other seeds is still very small. A few days of fine weather will probably bring a beginning of seasonal activity in the small seeds trade. Chaff, which firmed to £4 15s last week, has eased again to £4 10s. Supplies are more plentiful.