Thank you for correcting the text in this article. Your corrections improve Papers Past searches for everyone. See the latest corrections.

This article contains searchable text which was automatically generated and may contain errors. Join the community and correct any errors you spot to help us improve Papers Past.

Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image
Article image

Wairarapa Times-Age SATURDAY, JANUARY 10, 1941. THE VEGETABLES PROBLEM.

WITHIN Ilic limits Io which it was no doubt eonlined, Hie ' Price Tribunal, of which Air Jnslice lliinler is cliairinaii, has made a methodical inquiry into the question of the scarcity and dearness of vegetables. The conclusions and recom in <* n< I;i tions of the tribunal will hardly awaken optimism, however. They certainly cannot be expected Io inspire enthusiasm in a country in which, in anything like rational conditions, there would be no difficulty and need be no undue cost, in producing, even in the worst seasons, and in spile of Hie occasional failure of this or that crop, a supply of vegetables that would satisfy amply the needs of the whole population.

The present season admittedly is abnormal as regards weather and in other respects. The withdrawal of labour from market gardening, on the one hand and a heavy demand, on the other, for fresh vegetables for the fighting services in this country and abroad, obviously also have done a. good deal Io aggravate Hie situation, but New Zealand is pre-eminently a country whic-h should be able to meet and overcome difficulti('S of this kind. There are many lands in which even the weather conditions of our present season Avon Id be regarded as tolerably good from the market gardening standpoint and it would be extravagant to claim that, by Avar time standards, there is as yet any real shortage of labour in the Dominion.

Though they are no doubt put forward with the best, intentions, the proposals of the tribunal that methods of planned production and marketing should be applied to vegetables will be received by a good many people with justifiable apprehension. On past experience it cannot but be feared that these proposals will, or would work out in a considerable expansion of official machinery, with little benefit to either producers or consumers. The regulated marketing of vegetables, even if it ensured adequate and constant supplies, which assuredly is not to be taken for granted, Avould be likely to entail the standardisation of high prices.

As it bears on the nutrition of children and of the community generally, the vegetable problem of course is at its worst in the larger centres of population. Apart from the fiat, dwellers to whom the tribunal alludes in its report, a good many of the inhabitants of our cities, even if they have a house to themselves, have gardens that are not only very small, but are only to be made fertile at great labour and cost.

The true remedy for this state of affairs, where vegetable supply and other and even more important questions are concerned, is to get as many people as possible out of the cities and into roomier areas in which anyone who desired to do so could have the use of a patch of good garden land of adequate size. From the broadest standpoint of human ivelfare it would be highly jirofitable to do this, by a wisely-planned distribution and location of industries and in other ways.

The only hopeful method of remedying the current unsatisfactory conditions of vegetable sii])])ly is to give an increasing proportion of the population an opportunity of growing their own vegetables. Our ruling tendency at present, however, is to mass increasing numbers of people into congested metropolitan and other closely populated-areas, where the cultivation of adequate home gardens becomes in many instances difficult or impossible.

Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/WAITA19420110.2.5

Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka

Wairarapa Times-Age, 10 January 1942, Page 2

Word count
Tapeke kupu
573

Wairarapa Times-Age SATURDAY, JANUARY 10, 1941. THE VEGETABLES PROBLEM. Wairarapa Times-Age, 10 January 1942, Page 2

Wairarapa Times-Age SATURDAY, JANUARY 10, 1941. THE VEGETABLES PROBLEM. Wairarapa Times-Age, 10 January 1942, Page 2

Help

Log in or create a Papers Past website account

Use your Papers Past website account to correct newspaper text.

By creating and using this account you agree to our terms of use.

Log in with RealMe®

If you’ve used a RealMe login somewhere else, you can use it here too. If you don’t already have a username and password, just click Log in and you can choose to create one.


Log in again to continue your work

Your session has expired.

Log in again with RealMe®


Alert