EXPORT MEATS

Wairarapa Times-Age, 16 October 1941, Page 5

EXPORT MEATS

HIGH AND LOWER GRADES DIFFERENCES IN PRICES. WILL BE MORE MARKED THIS SEASON. (By Telegraph—Press Association.) CHRISTCHURCH, October 15. The difference in the price of high grade and lower grade export meats will, it is believed, be made more marked in the schedule of prices for the coming export season, which the Minister of Agriculture and Marketing, Mr Barclay, said last week would be announced soon. It is understood that a series of conferences among the Government and various interests connected with the trade has been completed, and that encouragement of the production of lighter and therefore more valuable lambs, wethers and ewes for export was agreed upon. For many months those connected with the meat export trade have believed that some alteration in price schedules to bring about this result was contemplated. Many rumours gained currency, among the most persistent peing one that the export of certain classes would be abandoned altogether, and that farmers who normally produced them would be compensated from funds built up from a levy on the more valuable export. It is reported now that the new schedule is likely to allow of approximately the same prices as last year being paid for light lambs, wethers, and ewes, but for prices lower than those of last year being, paid for heavier weights. Recently it has been profitable to produce some of the heavier grades of meat as the lighter and usually more valuable grades. The object, it is stated; is to produce somewhere about a normal year’s meat output, about 275,000 tons, for export, but to make it more valuable.