asked the Minister for Agriculture if he will state the total quantity of surplus wheat on hands at 1st January and 30th June, 1958, or on the nearest available date.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Surplus Wheat.
On 1st January, 1958, the surplus wheat amounted to approximately 117,000 tons. On 28th June, 1958, the surplus remaining to be disposed of amounted to approximately 23,000 tons.
Would the Minister be good enough to say how does he define "surplus" in that context? Is it after allowing for a certain volume of carry-over, or who determines what is surplus and what is adequate carry-over?
When you make allowance for the estimated amount that will be necessary for manufacture into flour plus the normal carry-over, you deduct that from the total and get the surplus.
Is the Minister not aware that, on that definition, there are surpluses in the hands of practically every wheat-growing country in the world running into many millions of tons in the United States, Canada and Australia and considerable surpluses in many European countries and that in each case these are held and used as opportunity presents itself?
Apparently, that is what we have been doing too.
I should like to be clear about this, Sir. I understand that when wheat is determined in this country to be surplus, hereafter it is to be disposed of at whatever price it will fetch as animal feeding stuff or, in the alternative, supplied to biscuit factories at that price in order to enable them to compete on the home market. Surely there ought to be more precision in determining what is the surplus if that is the way in which it is to be disposed of?
There is complete precision in the manner in which the determination is made. When the required amount is estimated for conversion into flour plus the carry-over, be it 40,000 or 50,000 tons, it is then a very simple matter to discover what the surplus is.
Provided the Minister accepts the proposition that it is quite unjustifiable to marry two harvests. You may have a harvest in 1957 in which there is a surplus, as defined by the Minister, to be followed by a harvest in 1958 in which there will be a deficit. If we hold the surplus wheat, as defined by the Minister, from the 1957 harvest it could easily be absorbed if the 1958 harvest did not come up to anticipation instead of being jettisoned on the terms fixed by the present Government.
The amount of the carry-over determined is regarded as a reasonable safety margin having regard to the estimated acreage that is under the crop this year.