FARMERS’ YEAR

Waikato Times, Volume 122, Issue 20500, 17 May 1938, Page 6

FARMERS’ YEAR

LOBBEB FROM DIBEABE GUARANTEED PRICE ADEQUATE? (Special Reporter) AUCKLAND, Tuesday “The year has been fraught with perhaps more than its share of minor troubles, floods, disease losses, etc., culminating in the overwhelming disaster of facial eczema among the flocks and herds, causing on some farms from 50 to 100 per cent loss of stock,” stated Mr H. O. Mellsop, Auckland Provincial president of the New Zealand Farmers’ Union, in his annual report to the annual conference to-day. “A very wide area has been affected by disease, and the position of many farmers has become precarious,” continued Mr Mellsop. “These losses of all kinds, occurring periodically as they do, stresses the point we have always contended in our discussions on the adequacy or otherwise of the guaranteed price, namely, that any fixation of a price for the year is absolutely inadequate unless full provision is made for depreciation of stock, and ample provision for reserves in the case of emergency. It is a right of every industry to set aside a reasonable amount for reserve, but it is a right that is not recognised in the price fixation formula of the Minister of Marketing.”