Mr. Chairman, I request the privilege of the half-hour.

The debate on the Agriculture Vote is, in my view, possibly one of the most important debates that can take place in this Parliament. The fact that two full days have been allowed for this debate is to my mind indicative of how important it is. When I look at the number of members on the opposite side of this Committee, it is clear proof to me of how many members of this Parliament there are who regard this as being a most important debate.

In order to gain something of a perspective of conditions in the agricultural sector we must look at the developments in the industry over the past number of years. We all know that 1967 was an outstanding year for the agricultural industry and that although a normalization took place during the succeeding decade, the past decade can be referred to as the golden decade in agriculture in South Africa. Since 1968, we have had one bumper crop after the other. Admittedly, we did have a set-back in 1973, I think, but even when the volume of production showed a decrease in that year, the gross value of agricultural production did not show a decline; on the contrary, new records were established every year. Between 1967 and 1976, the increase in the physical volume of production was almost 40%, and the gross value rose from R1 200 million to R3 500 million last year.

One would therefore expect that we who are gathered here today should have nothing but praise for those involved in the machinery of state exercising control over the agricultural sector, but, Mr. Chairman, a black cloud hangs over the future of agriculture in South Africa. This is a cloud which, unless systematic action is taken, may lead to a situation where, in my estimate, one quarter of the 76 000 farmers will possibly have to leave their farms during the next 10 years. If we are stricken by serious drought, or if extremely unfavourable weather conditions set in, my prediction may even be too conservative. Let me add immediately that my Party will by no means welcome this situation, i.e. if farmers should be driven from their farms by economic conditions. We should regard that as a tragedy, and we sincerely want to recommend that everything possible should be done to prevent such a situation.

Let us therefore take a closer look at what happened during this decade of the farmer and what went wrong. While the farmer’s gross income increased year after year, his expenses increased even faster, so much so that his net income was affected. This rose from R502 million in 1968 to approximately R1 336 million in 1977. The agricultural sector’s burden of debt, however, increased from approximately R900 million in 1968 to approximately R2 500 million in 1977. When we realize that the farmers’ expenses are now approaching an amount of approximately R2 000 million a year and that their net income is still under R1 500 a year, it becomes abundantly clear to us that the farmers are falling more and more deeply into debt and that it is becoming more and more difficult for them to accumulate a sufficient amount of working capital to plant their crops. The capital they need is so far in excess of their net income that vast, possibly astronomical, amounts will have to be obtained to make the necessary working capital available to them. I should like to ask the hon. the Minister whether he can tell us where that money is to come from. Last year, the Land Bank had to make available cash credit loans to an amount of R1 900 million to co-operative societies, and it is being suggested that in five years’ time the Land Bank will require an amount of more than R5 000 million to provide these farmers with the necessary funds. If that projection is correct, this will create tremendous problems for us. I say this knowing full well that it is not only the Land Bank which has to make those funds available. They may also come from the private sector. But I do think that the farmer is to a large extent dependent upon State aid in particular. As if that is not bad enough, we also have the problem of the low yield on capital invested in the agricultural sector.

The question which involuntarily comes to mind now is this: Does the problem not perhaps lie with the farmers themselves? Are we dealing in South Africa with a bunch of men who are not competent to farm? Is that perhaps our problem? My reply to this—and I may be right or wrong—is both yes and no. I believe that among our farmers too, as in all professions, there is a small percentage that should rather have chosen another profession. I believe that is so. But if we take into account that in respect of almost every agricultural product in this country there is a surplus rather than a shortage, one must come to the conclusion that our farmers are technically capable of producing. From a technical point of view, most farmers possess the necessary acumen and skill to produce economically. What should indeed be looked into, is whether there are not perhaps too many uneconomical agricultural units causing the unit cost of our products to be too high, and at the same time it must be ascertained whether the gap between the producer price and the consumer price is not too wide. Could that not be one of our problems? I want to ask the hon. the Minister whether he will also enlarge on this matter later on.

Another problem, Mr. Chairman, and this is possibly the greatest problem in the industry—and I have already referred to this—is the low yield on the capital invested in the agricultural sector. Agriculture is undoubtedly that sector of the economy of South Africa with the lowest yield for the capital invested. I have here a table which indicates that in 1970 the net return on invested capital was 5%. This has not changed much over the years. It increased to 6%, 6,1%, 6,4% and in 1974, a particularly good year, to 8,5%. After that, the return declined again, and if my information is correct, the figure for 1977 was approximately 3,6%. Nobody will be prepared to invest money in the agricultural sector at that rate of interest. It is true that the yield on capital is not the same for all parts of the country and all sectors of the industry, but at this low rate of return, investment in agriculture generally will certainly not attract fresh capital. I think it is going to create a major problem in future.

I would suggest, and I am addressing this specifically to the hon. the Minister, that there are various ways in which the removal of the bottlenecks which I have referred to can be tackled. I have drawn up a list of eight points to which attention may be given. In the first place, I suggest that very positive action should be taken by the State—and I should like the hon. the Minister to react to this—to prevent the inflationary price increases, especially on fuel, fertilizer and animal fodder. It is exceedingly difficult for farmers to reduce the volume of these three commodities which are used by them. We all know what could happen in South Africa in the long term if farmers were in fact to decide to reduce the volume by not using fertilizer, for example. That would create a real danger to agriculture. As far as these three commodities are concerned, I feel that the hon. the Minister and his colleagues in the Cabinet must take active, positive steps before it is too late. As far as I know, it is on these three commodities that the major part of the farmers’ production costs are incurred, namely either to get the crops into the soil, or to produce the meat for our various markets.

In the second place, real and positive efforts must be made either to make all uneconomical units economical through better planning and utilization of the soil, or to achieve the same object by other means. I want to read out a brief quotation to confirm this. I quote the following from Die Boer of February 1978—

The point I am making, Sir, is that the investment and the rate of interest may differ vastly from place to place, from farm to farm, and from product to product, and that it is therefore necessary for us to take a look at those farms or those areas where farmers should perhaps handle their farms differently, produce other products, or utilize their land in a different way. Attention should be paid to this aspect, and this is my second point.

Thirdly, Mr. Chairman, I suggest that every farmer who receives financial assistance from the State should operate in accordance with an agreed agricultural programme, and that a bookkeeping system agreed upon beforehand should be used, a system which should be discussed with the local agricultural-technical or other agricultural office at least twice a year. What I am trying to suggest, is this: While it is correct that farmers should receive financial assistance from the State when they need it, it is to the farmers’ advantage to plan in conjunction with the experts in that field to ensure that that money is spent correctly. It is not merely a question of their farming correctly from a technical point of view, but from a business' point of view, too, their farming activities should be conducted correctly. I therefore suggest to the hon. the Minister that we should make use of the facilities the various departments have at their disposal to make available to the farmers. It is to. the advantage of the farmers themselves, and moreover, the funds which the State lends to farmers are trust funds, and provision should be made, and it should be seen to, that that money is spent correctly.

In the fourth place, I would suggest that far too little is being done for what I call “on the job training”. I am referring here to White, Brown and Black workers on our farms. Skill and know-how are among the best means of keeping overheads down and enhancing productivity. I feel that much more can be done in this regard.

In the fifth place—and this point should really be read in conjunction with my fourth point—I want to mention something I raised in the Assembly Chamber on a previous occasion. In order to increase productivity, it is necessary that proper housing and permanent employment be provided. If I may take up the cudgels for the farmers in the Western Cape, Sir, I just want to tell the hon. the Minister that the system in force in respect of Black workers today is all but satisfactory. A productive worker is a worker who lives happily with his family and who has long-term job security. I can state unreservedly that all progressive farmers in the Western Cape would prefer to grant their Black workers the same privileges they grant any other workers. I request the hon. the Minister to look into this matter, please.

What about the Coloured workers in the Western Cape?

The Coloured workers in the Western Cape are welcome. Obviously, this is so. It is a fact that there are various types of work which—whatever the reason might be—are more suited to certain persons; they are more interested in those jobs; owing to their way of life they find such jobs more attractive. This is a fact, Mr. Chairman, whether we like it or not. Take the dairy industry, for example. The Black workers prefer that kind of employment. As far as the broiler industry is concerned, for example, we find that Black workers prefer to be employed in that sphere. We cannot argue this away. It is a fact.

The sixth point I want to make, and these proposals are put to the hon. the Minister in earnest—once again, I should have liked to see the hon. the Minister of Coloured Relations present here—is that schools in the rural areas form an integral part of the correct approach to reform and improvement in the agricultural industry. No community—and this applies to Coloureds as well as Blacks— without a school, a church and sports facilities in the rural areas and on our farms can hope today to attract the best farm workers and to retain them. The Department of Coloured Relations has proved itself to be totally incompetent in this respect. I can quote numerous examples of this. That department has proved itself to be quite incompetent to meet those needs of the farm worker, namely in regard to schools, etc.

We are not discussing the Vote of the Minister of Coloured Relations now.

Mr. Chairman, I specifically requested the hon. the Minister of Agriculture to bring pressure to bear on the Department of Coloured Relations with all the power at his command to assist us in that respect. What I say here, goes for the Black farm worker as well. Where he lives with his wife and his family, the accessibility of a school will help tremendously to bring stability to those people.

The seventh point I want to make is that the committee which brought up a report on rural reform in South Africa—the report has just been published—made quite a number of recommendations. That report must be studied. I realize that it is not the work of the Department of Agriculture to shoulder the responsibility in respect of rural reform in South Africa. The point I wish to make is that the farmer, as the pivot, as the leader in the rural areas of South Africa, will have to play a most dynamic and leading role in this respect. That report contains recommendations which we dare not ignore. Perhaps we can refer to them on a later occasion.

To come to the budget itself, I am sorry to have to say that it does not give me the impression that everybody realizes how serious the position is in the agricultural industry. I just want to quote a few examples in support of what I am saying. I might just say that this is the first budget to be dealt with' by me, and I am therefore going to quote only those points on which I want to express criticism. There is, of course, much in the budget which is good and which I support and unreservedly accept. I can assure the hon. the Minister that I am not arguing about those points. However, I do want to point out a few examples in respect of which I do have criticism to express.

Under Vote 13, on page 1, we see that the provision which has been made for agricultural financing and acquisition of land has been reduced by R2 million. If we look at the details set out on page 6, then the position seems to me to be quite irresponsible. Funds ear-marked for land and improvements last year, have been reduced from R6 million to R2 million. We know that we are living in times in which we shall perhaps have to utilize the available funds to effect immediate relief where necessary. However, if we go so far as to start pushing the improvement of our land into the background, then I begin to fear for the long term in the industry. In my view this is absolute nonsense, and I gain the impression that no confidence is being placed in the future. It is true that in regard to the consolidation of debts approximately R4 million more has been made available to us. I welcome that. But I put it to the hon. the Minister whether, taking into account the burden of debt of the farmers, this R4 million for the consolidation of debts will be adequate to put them back on their feet in the long term. I doubt whether that will be the case.

The next point I want to make in connection with the budget, is in regard to Vote 14, on page 1. We see here that the estimate under Agricultural Economics and Marketing has been reduced by the huge amount of R17 million. Even this amount is misleading, because an amount of R19 million which has been included in this Vote, was previously voted under the Treasury Vote. The decrease is therefore, in actual fact, approximately R36 million.

I made the point earlier that agricultural management was almost just as important as the technical know-how in the industry. In looking at the half a million rand set aside for agricultural production economics, I find that it is really a ridiculously small amount. It has to do with agricultural management. There are approximately 76 000 farmers in South Africa. If one divides up that small amount, one finds that R6,50 is being spent on each farmer in order to help to ensure that his bookkeeping and his agricultural management will be as effective as possible. I want to make the point that while farmers are highly skilled in various fields, it is nevertheless true that as far as bookkeeping systems are concerned, many of us are perhaps not as up to date as can be expected of us. I feel, and I put it to the hon. the Minister, that in this respect, too, he should take drastic steps to help to ensure that the farmer, as far as his agricultural management is concerned, is afforded more assistance and advice.

Then I come to my third point of criticism, namely the subsidies on wheat and maize products, i.e. an amount of R94 million. In this respect, I simply do not understand what is going on; perhaps some of my colleagues can put me right here. Mr. Chairman, this R94 million surely does not represent subsidies paid out to farmers. How is it possible, then, that we reflect these amounts in this budget as relating to agriculture, whereas it should actually be reflected under quite a different heading? [Interjection.] We must try and answer that question, although I myself cannot do so. However, I am going to ask the hon. the Minister to answer it for me. It creates the impression, however, that the farmers are being subsidized by way of an amount of R94 million. I do not know where this amount belongs; but what I do know is that this amount should not be reflected here. It creates a wrong impression, and I would say that it does not promote the image of the agriculturist at all.

I then come to the last point I want to make, and that concerns the question of interest subsidization. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, firstly, I want to congratulate the hon. member on making his debut here in this debate as the main speaker of the Official Opposition on agricultural matters. The hon. member was very cautious in his criticism. I think it may be advisable for him to be cautious at this stage, because we listened to him very carefully. I do want to react, however, to a few statements the hon. member made.

He referred, inter alia, to the importance of agriculture, and also stressed the growth and development of agriculture. Furthermore, he mentioned the growth in physical volume as reflected in the latest report of the Department of Agricultural Economics and Marketing, namely that during the past year it showed a growth rate of 13%, and that we in fact have continued growth in the physical volume of agriculture. In other words, the hon. member says by implication that agriculture in South Africa is basically sound, because the principal function of agriculture is to supply food to the various population groups in South Africa. A second fact which the hon. member perhaps omitted to mention is that the agriculturist makes a very substantial contribution to our earnings of foreign exchange, that we are one of the few Western countries which export agricultural products, and that we are therefore a food exporting country. Actually, this means that the hon. member commended the agricultural industry, but in contrast to that—and in my view this is something of an anomaly—he says that a black cloud is hanging over agriculture in South Africa. He says, among other things, that he foresees that 30% of the farmers in South Africa will disappear from their farms within the next ten years. It is difficult to determine at this stage what the rate of this trend is, but we do know that it is a continuing trend in South Africa, especially in the light of its particular set-up, i.e. the fact that we have to contend with potentially poor agricultural resources. On the other hand, we are a strong industrially developing country, and as a result a process of urbanization is taking place. This has also given rise to the investigation by Dr. Du Plessis in regard to rural reform, and he will also inquire into this situation, among other things. Those matters are receiving due attention at present.

The hon. member went on to refer to uneconomical units. However, it is known to ail of us that our financing system in South Africa is geared to giving the necessary financial assistance only to economical units in an effort to keep our farmers on the land. This financing is offered at subsidized rates of interest. There are numerous other aspects, and we could discourse on them at length. The hon. member also made another statement to which I want to refer. He said one should link State financing to—as he put it— a sort of supervision. In other words, if a farmer receives State aid, he should consider himself to be committed to certain types of farming systems. I think that was what the hon. member meant in this regard. Sir, I want to tell you that the farming community of South Africa are in fact proud people who prefer to be in charge of their farms. For that reason, the policy of the Government in this country has for many years been one of believing in a system of self-help. In other words, the facilities are made available to the farmer, and he must help himself. One does not want to go and carry out inspections all the time to ascertain whether the farmer is meeting the requirements. We believe in the individuality of the farmer and his right to be able to hold his own in a particular agricultural situation.

The hon. member also spoke about management, assistance, and bookkeeping systems. When we talk about those matters, we must be practical. If one moves in the direction of purely economic guidance to individual farmers, one must go to the farm of the farmer. Economic guidance is provided on an individual basis, and one cannot give guidance in the same way as one would in respect of any other scientific agricultural matter, for example, which is provided by way of pamphlets or fanners’ days. That is where one should discuss the fanner’s economic problems with him and analyse his capital structure. Sir, with all due respect, the Department of Agricultural Economics and Marketing does not have the necessary manpower for that. Nor do I know whether it is physically possible ever to reach such a stage.

Mr. Chairman, may I put a question? If it were physically possible, do you think it would be a good idea?

Yes, Sir, I agree that it is a sound system. But I want to tell the hon. member what is in fact the order of the day at present. Individual agricultural cooperative societies are in the process of creating those facilities in their own ranks, so that in the particular circumstances in which their members farm—I am speaking here of the general agricultural co-operative societies—and with the particular intensive knowledge of the production systems within their area, they may be better able to make intensive economic studies of the various branches of the farming industry in their area. Here, again, the farmers are helping themselves in that field.

Mr. Chairman, I want to refer to another aspect. It is a matter which we have viewed with considerable concern recently, namely the board of control levy, the so-called statutory levy in respect of products produced by farmers. This matter received a great deal of attention in the Press. Some papers responded to it in such a way that the whole principle of statutory levies has been affected as a result. There were, for example, Press reports such as this one in Die Transvaler of 28 April 1978. It reads—

The report goes on to say—

Sir, this thing really started in the maize industry, but the tenor of the article is that the entire system of statutory levies is being questioned as being an unfair and unreasonable system to those farmers in South Africa who are not members of organized agriculture. Mr. Chairman, I think it is necessary that the Committee devote its attention to this matter. I should like to hear what the hon. the Minister’s arguments are in this regard. I think that in the time in which we are living we should have a very sensible and judicious approach to agricultural marketing. This type of reporting bedevils the approach to agricultural marketing in South Africa. There are two important aspects of agricultural marketing, namely the production point, where the producer is involved, and the terminal point, where the consumer is involved. Our marketing system in South Africa has passed through two phases. The first phase was the period of the introduction of control measures under the Marketing Act, mainly to assist a struggling farming industry in South Africa. However, we have long passed that phase and are now in the second phase, namely the period of increased marketing orientation. The previous phase is something of the past, and I doubt whether we here in South Africa will place further products under the control of the Marketing Act. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, I rise to give the hon. member an opportunity of completing his speech.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the hon. member for his kindness.

The development and growth of our agricultural industry takes place mainly in two fields, namely the field of capital intensiveness and the field of scientific production systems. And all of this takes place in accordance with the optimum utilization by the agricultural industry of our agricultural resources. A sound and effective marketing system goes hand in hand with this. I want to make the statement that the economic value of agricultural production is determined to a large extent by the effectiveness of its marketing. I would even suggest that marketing should be seen as an integral part of production. When we look at the long title of the Marketing Act, it is very clear that this Act is aimed not only at marketing, but also at production. That is why the standpoint of the Commission of Inquiry into the Marketing Act is that the producer has the greatest interest in the marketing system. This is a fundamental standpoint which pervades the composition of the entire marketing machinery. There is, for example, a producer majority in boards of control. Then there is the appointment of people with a special knowledge of production aspects, that is to say, the appointment of farmer-members to the National Marketing Council. There is, in addition, the insertion of the new section 46D in the Marketing Act, the exceptionable amendment to this Act which is now being attacked in the Press. It deals, among other things, with the financing of the South African Agricultural Union.

Our entire marketing system is based mainly on the interests of the producers who are represented in it. In other words, the success of producer participation in our marketing system determines whether our marketing system in South Africa will be a success or a failure. Any marketing system in which the producers have no confidence is doomed to failure.

I want to refer briefly to some of the provisions of section 46. It gives the Minister discretionary powers to approve estimates submitted by the South African Agricultural Union. The funds for these estimates are derived from the various boards of control by means of levies imposed on products produced by producers. The amounts levied in this manner are paid into an account at the Reserve Bank, and the Secretary for the department exercises supervision over the account and administers it. The implications of this are perhaps far more important than most people realize. In the first place, it implies the recognition, in terms of the Marketing Act, of the South African Agricultural Union as the central body representing producers in their respective branches of the agricultural industry. All producer organizations which are not affiliated are therefore excluded for the purposes of this Act. This section involves the South African Agricultural Union in the total marketing action to a greater extent than ever before. Its important task now becomes that of pointing out to the Minister the special needs of producers in the various branches of the industry, for example intensive surveys of production costs and structural changes in the production processes.

The preparation of a central budget in which all the needs of particular branches of the industry have been properly set out results in, and requires, sound liaison and coordination between all the production branches of the agricultural industry. The provision of funds to specialist organizations lends security to the continued proper inquiry into an industry where it is essential. It must inevitably contribute to a more effective and, consequently, more responsible participation by producers in the total marketing action. They can come forward with well-considered and scientific submissions.

In the fifth place, Sir, this participation by the S.A. Agricultural Union definitely imposes additional responsibility, not only to its own affiliated members, but also to the Minister and the Government. He himself will have to ensure that these funds are spent properly, and the amount involved is, so I am given to understand, between R1,2 and R1,4 million. The impression is created that the Minister has now been given a so-called free hand to share out these funds as he pleases. I do not agree with that, Sir; it is not true.

The discretionary powers of the Minister are determined by the Marketing Act; in other words, these funds must still be utilized for the industry itself. The funds must be utilized for realizing the objectives of the Marketing Act, and in that regard the Minister relies on the National Marketing Council to advise him. The Secretary himself is responsible to the Select Committee of Parliament, and the Minister himself is, of course, responsible to Parliament. There is no question of its being possible that these funds can be spent freely and arbitrarily, nor specifically simply to cause organizational problems for certain agricultural organizations in South Africa because they are not acceptable to all farmers in all respects.

The standpoint of the S.A. Agricultural Union in this regard is very interesting. A statement to the Press by the Director reads as follows—

In other words, Sir, one may conclude—and this is very important—that over and above the funds at the disposal of the S.A. Agricultural Union at present, it is getting an additional R1,2 million in this way, and what for? It is obtaining this with a view to the vertical extension of the marketing system in South Africa, but, in the second place, it will create the opportunity for greater and more responsible participation by producer organizations in our marketing system. I think the future development—and that is how we saw it in the commission—is that the producers in South Africa will have to play an ever greater and more important role, particularly in the price-fixing process of agricultural products. My personal standpoint is that a stage is sometimes reached unnecessarily where the boards of control find themselves in a position where their importance and popularity are prejudiced.

A certain producer organization, in its efforts to be popular, has been playing off its price proposals against the board of control. I shall mention its name: it is SAMSO—this is also my organization—which has been boasting to the public that it was them who persuaded the Minister to agree to the current price of maize. When this type of propaganda takes root, it creates embarrassment for the board of control, and I think this system of funding will bring us closer and closer to a process in terms of which the boards of control will mainly administer prices and will to a greater extent have to concentrate on the purely marketing functions, so that it will mainly be the producer organizations, the responsible producer organizations, that will ultimately negotiate the prices with the hon. the Minister. That is how I see this developing.

I therefore think anyone in South Africa, whether it be the newspapers or whoever—I do not know how these people obtain their information—who agitate, against this funding is doing agriculture anything but a favour. On the contrary, Sir, I think this is a fantastic development in our marketing system; it holds great potential for agricultural marketing in South Africa, and for that reason we welcome the funding which the hon. the Minister has approved at last. We believe it can only be to the advantage of agricultural marketing in South Africa.

Since agricultural marketing and the role of the producers in agricultural marketing are under discussion, I want to tell you, Sir, that the more successful our marketing system is in South Africa, the more beneficial it will be to the consumer. That is precisely what the marketing system is geared to—and the hon. member merely touched on that in passing— namely the margin between the farm gate and the consumer must be as narrow as possible. I have a document here, and I do not know whether or not I have sufficient time …

No, the hon. member’s time has expired.

Mr. Chairman, I rise to give the hon. member an opportunity of completing his argument.

Sir, I thank the hon. member. I think the criterion we must apply for the successful implementation of marketing in South Africa is precisely what I have just mentioned, namely that we must see the farm value as a percentage of the consumer costs in a food basket. Very interesting research has been undertaken in this regard of late. In 1966, a survey was made of 30 different types of food which, in the main, constituted the food basket of the consumer in South Africa. The farmer’s share in this food basket was determined at the time, and it is interesting to note that in 1974 the producer’s share was 53,1%. By 1977 it had declined to 48,7%. That gives us an indication of how the distribution costs from the farm gate to the consumer are rising. This is not a healthy trend, but let us take a further look at this situation and consider the figures for the USA, for example. By and large they have a free enterprise system there and not a marketing system such as we have in South Africa, where all the facets of marketing have been rationalized. In comparing South Africa with the USA, we get this interesting analysis: In the USA, in 1976, the farm value as a percentage of the consumer costs was 40%, whereas it was 53% in South Africa. In other words, the distribution costs or margin from the farm gate to the consumer is lower in South Africa than in the USA, otherwise the farm share would have declined.

When we take the respective products, for example white bread, we find that in the USA the farm share is 16%, whereas in South Africa it is as high as 49%. That is, of course, as a result of the higher subsidies paid on bread. The figure for fresh milk is 56% in the USA, whereas in South Africa it is 59%. That is how it varies, Sir, and that proves to us that in regard to the margin between the farm gate and the producer our marketing system is on a perfectly sound basis. I maintain that we have a good system, and I have every confidence, Mr. Chairman, that with the participation of the S.A. Agricultural Union, which has now been involved, we shall develop greater possibilities in our marketing system.

Mr. Chairman, it is a great pleasure to take part in a debate in this Chamber where I made my debut in Parliament about 14 years ago. I must say there is a calm and restful atmosphere and I hope that I will not disturb it too much.

The hon. member for Wynberg mentioned in passing the question of the importance of the White farmer on the platteland. I have said many times that the White farmer is the only real guarantee of stability in the countryside. Without a hold on the countryside no people can possibly hope to survive. I think that this is a point which every single thinking person who cares about agriculture will keep in mind and I know that this is something close to the hon. the Minister’s heart.

A question was asked in connection with extension work. The hon. member for Bethal asked whether the practical bookwork could be done by the Department on an individual basis. I understood that the hon. the Minister in the study groups that have been formed within the soil conservation districts was attempting to carry that information to the farmers on an individual basis.

That is correct.

I think that is one answer that will perhaps set the mind of the hon. member for Wynberg at rest. However, I must say to the hon. the Minister that I have been concerned at the way in which these study groups, having been established, have got under way and flourished and then seemed to reach a point where interest was lost. They then seemed to phase themselves out of existence. I do not know whether the hon. the Minister would like to comment on that. I think it is a very, very important point indeed and it is something that needs to be kept going, viz. the work that is being done by the study groups.

*The hon. member for Bethal mentioned this statutory levy and the dispute which has now cropped up in the maize industry. I just want to touch on that matter from the point of view of my farmers in Natal who are not even maize farmers. I mentioned the matter to the hon. member for Carletonville recently and told him that I would bring the matter to the attention of the hon. the Minister. As regards this statutory levy which the hon. member for Bethal mentioned, I have now been instructed by my people to urge the hon. the Minister to proceed with this levy and not to hesitate in this regard.

†I am speaking on behalf of the people in the Beef Producers Union, the Pig Development Association and that sort of agricultural organization in Natal who want this kind of financing. The hon. the Minister can rest assured therefore that he has the support of the people in Natal who are involved in agriculture.

*What really worries me is the dispute that has arisen in the maize industry. We have reached the end of the tunnel as far as maize is concerned. We have to buy the products and I simply cannot see how we can go on with a dispute like this raging in the ranks of the maize producers. I want to put my case very clearly. I am in favour of organized agriculture. I grew up like that, I am still like that today and I still regard the matter from that point of view. However, as far as I am concerned, I feel it is a sad day for South Africa that such a dispute should still be going on. The hon. the Minister, the department and the farmers sitting here, have not yet succeeded in thrashing out the matter and bringing those farmers together. In my opinion we would be doing something of vital importance for South Africa if we in this Committee could perhaps find a solution to this problem and submit ideas of bringing together those farmers. What also worries me is the fact that Sampi proceeded on the assumption that the cost structure which the department accepted as basic to the maize price was wrong. If that is in fact the case, that fact will have to be brought to the attention of the hon. the Minister, whether by bringing political pressure to bear or whatever. That fact will be accepted and then we shall once again have an enormous increase in the price of maize. We have just had such an increase which makes farming for my people in my region very, very difficult. If Sampi’s premise is in fact correct, I can only foresee that the figures which they presented to the hon. the Minister and to the department will have to be accepted, and we shall once again be faced with a situation where the maize price will soar. I think that the hon. the Minister will have to do everything in his power to try to sort out this matter. I have followed the progress of Sampi for many years, and I take an interest in the magazine, Die Landman, that has been published. They appear to me to have been set up as a specialist organization for maize producers at a time when there was no such organization within organized agriculture. They have done a tremendous amount of research and so on. I just want to put this question to the hon. the Minister: Does he accept Sampi as a responsible body that is trying to contribute something to the debate in progress in the maize industry today? I leave it to the hon. the Minister to reply to that question. Because it seems to me as if the disputes are now almost insoluble. I do not know whether it is a matter of personalities or a matter of principle. In the April issue of the magazine, Die Landman, statistics by Sampi are furnished. But there is a tremendous difference between these figures and those of the department. According to Sampi the real net income per ha of the maize farmer amounts to R15,54 but if that is the case it is in my opinion impossible for the maize farmer to carry on producing. And this is what concerns me, Mr. Chairman, for the maize farmer is the key figure in the agricultural industry of South Africa. I feel, therefore, that the hon. the Minister will be neglecting his duty if he does not avail himself of the opportunity to say something on this matter and, if possible, to quote figures to refute Sampi’s statement.

†Mr. Chairman, I believe that these two organizations are both acceptable; I would accept them. I want to make my position quite clear. In my part of the world we are not mealie producers; we are consumers. I therefore do not know the people at all; I have nothing to say about the people concerned. As I say, I have no axe to grind. I am an organized agriculture man and I have always been one. But it seems to me that here are two organizations both of which say that they have the interests of the mealie producer at heart. This controversy has been raging for many years now. We have not yet raised it in Parliament because we have always felt that it is a matter of a delicate nature. I am, however, not here today to add fuel to the flame; indeed, I want to try to pour oil on troubled waters because this situation cannot continue. I feel therefore that the hon. the Minister should take some kind of action. I do not know whether he can appoint some neutral person as a committee of inquiry to go into this matter and to try to reconcile the different sets of figures. I think he would be well advised to try to find somebody who would be acceptable to both parties. And I know that attempts of this nature have been made in the past. Whether the hon. member for Carletonville will be acceptable or not I do not know, but as the chairman of Samsa I think he might find himself in something of an awkward situation. There have been attempts made to reconcile the parties but the talks broke down because of the fact that the co-operatives were included as part of the structure which would take part in the reconciliation talks. I would like to ask the hon. the Minister whether it was not possible in that situation to ask the co-operatives to step aside so that people who had the interests of mealie farmers at heart could put their heads together in an attempt to find a solution.

Mr. Chairman, I ask the hon. the Minister whether he accepts the bona fides of Sampi. If he says no, then the question whether there can be a reconciliation between the two bodies obviously falls away. Because if the hon. the Minister says there are people who have a special interest which they regard as being the right one, but which they are using for a certain purpose—I must confess, I do not understand it and I do not know what it could be—then I think he should justify it. He should explain the matter in this debate, and tell the country exactly what is going on. Because, Sir, I repeat, our people are very concerned. We are the people who are going to use the mealies. We have no choice. People are today complaining that it is almost impossible—indeed it is impossible—to feed cattle and pigs and yield a profit in this situation.

Mr. Chairman, I agree in principle with the hon. member for Mooi River who mentioned a very important aspect here in regard to organized agriculture, namely the bitter struggle that is going on in the maize industry. I think this is a matter of real importance and we are very pleased at his positive approach to the matter because one normally finds that members of the Opposition are inclined to exploit a guard of this nature. This hon. member definitely did not do so today and we are very pleased about that. We also welcome his positive approach to the statutory levy for the Agricultural Union. I think the hon. member for Bethal stated very clearly how we on this side of the Committee feel about the matter. He made a very positive contribution indeed in this regard.

Mr. Chairman, no one has mentioned this yet and I want to be the first person to congratulate our three departments wholeheartedly on the excellent reports we received in such good time this year.

Hear, hear!

I think this redounds to the credit of our three departments. When one pages through all those reports and reads them, one gains some impression of the amount of time that must have been involved in their compilation, the excellent, scientific manner in which they have been compiled, and the fact that they read so easily to us farmers. Mr. Chairman, it was a great pleasure this year to page through the three reports and to read them.

Another very important matter I want to deal with today is the proposals by the Marketing Council in regard to the meat scheme. I want to refer you again to the Commission of Inquiry into the Marketing Act, the Wentzel Commission, which made the following recommendation in paragraph 85.7 of its report. It reads—

Mr. Chairman, as I understand it, the recommendation indicates that the Commission of Inquiry into the Marketing Act also found that there were certain aspects of the meat industry which definitely caused difficulty and which had to be investigated. In the entire inquiry by the commission, which was very superficial at that stage, it was found that there was great dissatisfaction in regard to certain aspects of the meat industry and the meat marketing system. In view of the great deal of criticism expressed about the existing system of control from time to time, the hon. the Minister decided to adopt this recommendation of the commission. This was in fact done during the Parliamentary session of 1976. The hon. the Minister followed that up by instructing the Marketing Council to investigate the entire meat scheme and to report on it. That report of the Marketing Council was tabled on 7 March 1978. I must quite frankly admit that when one reads that report carefully, one is impressed by the thoroughness of the inquiry which the Marketing Council carried out in that connection. Sir, I want to read you just one paragraph from the report. It is fairly lengthy but I want to read it to indicate the thoroughness of the report and to put the recommendations of the Marketing Council in perspective. It reads—

I think the whole crux of the problem in the meat industry is summarized in this paragraph. I think it is an excellent résumé of the dissatisfaction on the part of consumers as well as producers. I think the quotation is a true reflection of the problem.

What do the most important recommendations deal with? In the first place, there is reflection upon the guaranteed prices to producers. In the second place they deal with a number of points where carcase auctions will apply with guaranteed prices, in other words, the number of checkpoints.

Thirdly, they deal with the limiting powers of registration of factors in the meat industry. In the fourth place, there are recommendations in regard to hides and skins.

The Marketing Council mentions, inter alia, that it would appear that to a certain extent the problem can be ascribable to the approach of the Meat Board to the application of floor prices, namely that they must be worthwhile. The Marketing Council finds this a great problem and regards it as the greatest problem. This price has also to cover the floor price and feeding pen costs, while it remains unchanged throughout the season, and this results in a certain measure of rigidity. There is also the artificiality that has been built into the price structure over the years. In this regard, the Marketing Council thinks in particular—and I want to quote the example because it is characteristic—of the great price differences that have set in during the past few years. There have been higher floor prices for the X weight classes than for the Y weight classes, whereas the lighter Y weight classes have consistently fetched higher prices at the auctions. That is a serious anomaly. The seasonal premium is payable on all grades in spite of the fact that the seasonal trends of the various grades do not coincide and sometimes even more in opposite directions. The Marketing Council mentions further that the emphasis is evidently mainly on how close to the auction price the floor price should be fixed, and that the feeling arises that this is used to inflate the market price. The market price of any product has a very important distribution function, and in order for this distribution function to be performed, a high degree of mobility in price is indispensable on any open market. The price must make provision for putting a damper on a market but it must also be able to stimulate the market. The more attempts are made to put a damper on price fluctuations, the less will be the interest in adjusting the supply to the demand. That gives rise to so much rigidity in the price structure that the effective functioning of the auctions can be seriously impeded. The Meat Board is sometimes compelled, even when there are minor changes in conditions and sometimes even before an actual surplus arises, to restrict the bringing in of meat into controlled areas. This is an unsatisfactory state of affairs. It is harmful to an industry and it gives rise to a lack of confidence in that industry. In that way the burden of unrealistically high floor prices—and I want to qualify this very clearly—is, as it were, simply shifted off onto the producer because he has, at great expense, to withhold livestock which he would prefer to put on the market or else to dump them on the outside market at lower prices. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, I should like to follow up what the hon. member for Graaff-Reinet said. He set out very clearly the background to the recommendations of the National Marketing Council. In the times in which we are now living, the meat industry causes particular problems. The report of the Marketing Council highlighted some of these problems but it is apparent that there is in large measure a misapprehension concerning the directive given to the Marketing Council and the recommendations it made. I trust that what the hon. member for Graaff-Reinet pointed out will come to the attention of all interested parties, that they will realize that there are good reasons for the report and that technically speaking it is an excellent one. It provides a very great deal of information which can only be to the advantage of the meat industry in the future. When affairs in the meat industry do not run smoothly, as in any other section of agriculture, one can quickly become emotional. It is sometimes difficult to keep to the facts, to investigate the facts analytically and to argue the matter objectively. I believe that this document can be investigated and analysed to good effect by all those who are involved in the meat industry. Then we shall be able to progress because there is no doubt that there are in fact problems in the meat industry. There have been problems in the meat industry for years and there is a great need for these problems to be realized and solved. In the meat industry we are dealing with a variety of factors. We do not have homogeneous production systems. They vary from fattening in the feeding kraals to rounding off in the extensive areas.

Consequently it is extremely difficult to establish a system in the Republic which complies with these divergent requirements. This is in contrast to the circumstances in Europe where there is greater uniformity as regards production.

I want to point out that the recommendations of the Marketing Council justify study and that some of the recommendations are being criticized unfairly. That unfair criticism usually emanates from a lack of knowledge of the content of this report. We all know that the restrictions on supplies to our markets have had an extremely detrimental effect upon the producer. What is the use of a higher floor price when it only exists in theory? The producer’s sheep and cattle must be kept on his farm at great expense and spend the winter or summer there because there is simply no market for him to sell his stock. We have therefore to be sympathetic towards the approach of the Marketing Council as regards the floor price system. The basis of their recommendations is in fact the elimination of the restrictions on the supply of slaughter stock to the markets. To have a high floor price but not to be placed in the position of being able to market one’s cattle does not help anyone at all. I think therefore that we must now look very calmly and objectively at the motivation of the recommendations of the Marketing Council before we criticize the Marketing Council. In this regard I refer in particular to the Meat Board and the S.A. Agricultural Union.

There are other problems in the meat industry that have been pointed out in the report of the Marketing Council and which no one can deny. For instance, there is the overall control which certain organizations have over certain sections of the meat industry, for instance, abattoir agencies. They also control the preparation, sale and marketing of skins. This is set out very well in the report. It shows how a few companies have control which eventually leads to a small quantity of hides and skins being sold by public auction. This of course means that competition as regards prices is eliminated, or is very poor, and this can only be to the disadvantage of the producer.

There are problems which have been clearly set out and which everyone involved in the meat industry should keep an eye on. I hope you will permit me to discuss certain facets of the meat industry which cause problems to which it is so difficult to find a solution. The South African consumers are more spoiled as regards red meat than people elsewhere in the sense that they have a great preference for fresh meat. They are also prepared to pay more for it in comparison with the price of frozen meat. Another problem that we experience in this regard is that the commercial storage of meat is a particularly expensive factor. So far the trade in meat has been chiefly from hand to mouth. Meat is available for from four to seven days at the most and no significant stocks are carried by the trade to act as a buffer against fluctuations in supply. Of course, in the past the Railway rates were such that it was cheaper to transport cattle or sheep on the hoof. But all this has changed, and today we have the position where it is relatively cheaper to transport meat in refrigerated trucks than to transport livestock on the hoof. Of course, the further development of this tendency is being hampered by the fact that we have erected abattoirs at great capital expense and so we are actually being forced to make extensive use of them. Therefore the problems attaching to the marketing of our meat are great but not so great that they cannot be solved by the people involved. This can be done if they come together around a table in order to discuss the matter quite objectively. It will also help one to realize that one cannot have two conflicting interests vested in one person. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, I listened with interest to the hon. members who preceded me, and in particular the hon. member for Eshowe who spoke of the difficulties confronting the meat industry. This is a point I shall deal with during the course of my speech. He says they are in difficult circumstances, but the hon. member for Bethal took my colleague, the hon. member for Wynberg, to task for suggesting that a cloud hung over the agricultural industry at the moment. It shows that there is a fair amount of division in the ranks on the other side, and I quote the hon. member for Malmesbury, who said in a motion he introduced earlier this session, in column 772—

He quotes the Financial Gazette and he says—

Well, Sir, if that is not a cloud hanging over the agricultural industry, I don’t know quite what is. We heard, for example, the speech of the hon. member for Mooi River when he talked about the price of mealies. The hon. the Minister knows well that the price of mealies is one of the most serious aspects of our agricultural economics. We are in a situation where a rise in the price of mealies does not only affect mealie meal; it affects everything. I am sure the hon. the Minister is aware of the snowball effect this has had. There is the chicken industry in the Western Cape for instance. That industry is facing absolute disaster because of the increase in the price of mealies. The pig industry is also suffering a great deal as a result. I do not know whether these farmers are going to survive, and I should like to hear from the hon. the Minister today what his plans are in this respect. We know that he is faced with a dilemma, but there are many farmers who are not mealie farmers and they have been placed in a very invidious position because of this rise. I hope that there is some planning on behalf of the hon. the Minister in order to cope with this position.

I listened with particular interest to the speeches made by the hon. members for Graaff-Reinet and Eshowe. They talked about the meat industry and this is something I too want to talk about. I have studied the report of the National Marketing Council on the marketing of slaughter stock and meat.

Before I proceed to the subject matter of the report, I want to talk about a matter which I think is of extreme importance. I want to raise it with the hon. the Minister and I do so with a certain degree of hesitancy but I believe that it must be raised. Sir, this report is of tremendous importance to farmers and to consumers throughout South Africa. It is of interest to other individuals and bodies, beyond our borders as well as within our borders. Section 108 of the Republic of South Africa Constitution (Act 32 of 1961) deals with the matter of equality of both official languages—English and Afrikaans. I just want to read section 108 to hon. members to remind them of this. That section reads—

Sir, the Act is not completely specific about reports of the nature of the report of the National Marketing Council, but there is no doubt at all that the subject matter of the report is of general public importance and interest, and I believe that the spirit of the Act is being transgressed and that the English language is not being given fair or even equal treatment. We had a similar situation in the case of another report which is of considerable interest to numerous South Africans and others. I refer to the report of the commission of inquiry into the cost of certain abattoirs. That report again appeared in Afrikaans only. The excuse for this was that the expense of translation was not warranted. I am afraid I am not prepared to accept that excuse, Sir. I am getting a little sick and tired of the English language and the English-speaking people getting second-class treatment. [Interjections.] Hon. members on the other side can make as much noise as they like about this. Had those reports been produced in English only, we would have had a very, very, different tune. I said I was raising this with hesitancy because I do not think it is a matter which should be raised in this Committee. I am drawing it to the attention of hon. members and to the attention of the hon. Minister because I think he must do something about it. I really feel that this situation can no longer be tolerated. Having dealt with that, I should like to ask the hon. the Minister for an assurance that English will get equal treatment in future.

I shall return now to the report of the National Marketing Council on the marketing of slaughter stock and meat. I must say at the outset that the suggested direction put forward in the report has the approval of members on these benches in that it strives for the creation of a freer marketing system for slaughter animals and meat. It was with interest that I listened to the conciliatory tone of the speeches of the hon. members for Graaff-Reinet and Eshowe. They are obviously faced with a difficult situation from many of their farmer constituents. They are trying to be objective about this and trying to get people to look at those recommendations from a more reasonable point of view. I think this is very praiseworthy. Having said that, I think I should tell the hon. the Minister that before making a major decision on the report of the Marketing Council he could have done a better public relations exercise. I think he should have consulted organized agriculture. The shout that we heard from the South African Agricultural Union was not pleasant to hear. I think the hon. the Minister knew that what he was going to do was not going to be very popular so he decided to take the plunge without consultation. And with his well-known lack of tact, he jumped in boots and all. On this occasion, I am rather glad that he did. The result has been that he has had to back down to a certain extent in that he has been giving assurances that floor prices would not be reduced and that nothing would be done to alter the existing scheme to the disadvantage of the meat producer. At least, he has been quoted as saying these things, Sir. I wish the hon. the Minister had also added to that that nothing would be done to the disadvantage of the consumer, because in that Minister’s eyes the consumer and consumer interests tend always to come second.

Decontrol is a very desirable objective in our eyes and I think it is worthwhile taking a good, hard look at what control has done for the meat producer over the years. How has the farmer benefited? There is no doubt at all that there has been a degree of stability given to the industry. There is no doubt about that at all. Floor prices in controlled areas have ensured that the farmer has been protected from large-scale speculation and the terrible and disastrous situation that existed in the thirties. This has not been allowed to be repeated. But unfortunately, this stability has tended to be stability at a lower level. I do not think that many meat farmers at the moment can look at the present situation and feel very happy about it. Meat prices have undoubtedly been reasonably stable but stable at a low level which brings no real joy in terms of worthwhile profitability. This is the real danger of control; the farmer is possibly saved from major disaster as far as prices are concerned, but artificial control of the market has always tended to stabilize prices to the producer at a low level, not a high level. I realize that farmers are nervous about the idea of decontrol but I believe it will benefit them in the long run. I am particularly interested in the conviction expressed by the Marketing Council that a more effective distribution system will come about by the establishment of integrated private abattoirs and meat processing plants, coupled with the freer movement of meat throughout the country. I can understand, because of the tremendous capital investment involved, that the council felt that a measure of protection had to be retained for facilities such as City Deep and Cato Ridge near Durban. But I must applaud the recommendations that the Abattoir Corporation should not be allowed to erect or take over any more abattoirs whether within or outside the controlled areas. I believe that it was a mistake to embark on a policy of State control of abattoirs in the first instance. I do not believe this should ever have happened.

One of the major disaster decisions of recent years was the decision to centralize abattoirs. I know the situation has changed. At that time we were thinking of exports but that did not come about to the degree we thought it would. But over a period of years—the hon. member for Eshowe talked about this—the South African Railway Administration carried livestock at a loss. As part of a process of the rationalization of rail rates, tariffs have sky-rocketed in recent years by several hundred per cent. We are told that the transport of livestock is still uneconomic so we are likely to see further tariff increases. Now, Sir, how much more sensible would it not have been had we had a series of smaller local abattoirs where stock could be slaughtered. As the hon. member for Eshowe has said, carcasses which can be railed much more economically could then be railed to urban distribution points. This would have been the sensible way to go about it. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Orange Grove raised certain matters here, some of which I agree with and others with which I do not.

The hon. member for Orange Grove referred to the problem facing the chicken industry in the Western Cape. It is true that the chicken industry is going through difficult times as a result of increased costs, but it is not the chicken industry alone; other industries have the same problems.

I am not going to comment on his reference to the way in which English is supposedly being treated now. He himself said that he was very hesitant to raise it and I think he should rather not have done so.

As regards his reference to the marketing of meat, I should like to tell you that there are various speakers on this side of the committee who are still going to speak on meat. I shall therefore leave it to them; I am not going to comment on the references made by the hon. member.

Earlier on in the year I said in a motion that the agricultural industry is experiencing problems. We discussed it and there was a great deal of unanimity on it. We are experiencing a very calm atmosphere in this committee today; it is actually too calm for my liking. I almost feel like a man who is attending a formal dinner for the first time in his life and does not quite know how to use the cutlery. The atmosphere is a little strange; we are not really accustomed to it. It does not seem to me as if we differ greatly with one another across the floor of the House. That is why I should like to refer to a few topical matters, especially as regards agriculture here in the Western Cape.

When one looks at the statistics, then the agricultural position throughout the country does not look too bad. That is why the hon. member for Bethal may have been justified when he said that a dark cloud is not really hanging over agriculture. I want to say, however, that if one looks at agriculture here in the Western Cape, then the picture does not look all that favourable. I do not intend repeating the arguments which I used earlier this year. I would refer to a few specific aspects of agriculture here in the Western Cape.

The agricultural industry of the Western Cape is one of the largest potential providers of employment for our Coloured population in the Western Cape. It is one of the largest potential providers of housing for Coloureds in the Western Cape. It is one of the largest providers of educational facilities in the Western Cape. As regards the provision of educational facilities for Coloureds in the rural areas I can just say that the farming population has made an enormous contribution, in so far as they have built schools themselves and established facilities. This is being done, however, at the primary school level and when these Coloured children have to leave the farm schools to receive further education, they have to go to the schools in the towns where mostly academic training is available. I have already spoken to our Coloured leaders here in the Western Cape and both they and our farmers feel a need for agricultural high schools to be established in the Western Cape for the Coloureds as well, just as agricultural high schools are available there for the White children. That is why I should like to ask the hon. the Minister of Agriculture to discuss with his colleagues involved in Coloured affairs—the Minister of Coloured Relations and possibly the hon. the Minister of Planning—and to spell this need out to them very clearly.

In spite of what the hon. member for Wynberg said, we farmers in the Western Cape can manage without Black labour. I want to make this statement. [Interjections.] The hon. member says: “That remains to be seen. ” I do not want to say that one can do it overnight but the process is already in motion. A year or two ago my co-operative which recruits Black labour, recruited approximately 2 000 Bantu for dairy farms and other agricultural industries every month. That number has dropped at the moment to approximately 700 per month. This is a tremendous decrease in the number of Black workers in the agricultural sector which has already taken place. However, perhaps one runs away from one’s problems too easily. We are often told that the Coloured worker is not keen to work over weekends, and that is why he is not suitable for the dairy industry. I only have a small dairy and own a few cows. I always used to employ Bantu milkers. I gradually phased them out, and at the moment my milkers are Coloureds who actually worked in the towns and returned to the farms where they do a very good job. I have no problems with them. Of course one must also do some things oneself. One must give these people a little training and provide them with incentives. I believe in this way we will be able to get rid of the Black labour corps in the agricultural sector, and we can put the Western Cape agriculture in the hands of Coloured labour, which they are very well adapted to, provided that we can also get the necessary training facilities for them. We do have Kromme Rhee here, but I feel it is not enough. What we actually need, is that the Coloureds should be able to obtain formal secondary agricultural training.

The standard of living of the Coloureds on the farms is rising tremendously. Many of the Western Cape farmers give some of the remuneration to their workers in the form of goods. Now you must remember, Sir, that prices of food and other commodities are increasing, and these workers do not feel the pressure of the cost of living as much as the worker in the towns would feel it, because they are still obtaining their quantity of flour, milk and meat. It costs them nothing more. Of course it is an additional expenditure for the farmer. However, he does not feel the pressure of the cost of living as much as his brother in the town.

Cash wages have also increased tremendously on our farms. There are few farms where Coloured workers are not being paid at least 100% more than they were paid five years ago. Coloured wages have increased tremendously.

Now I come to the problem which I should like to discuss with the hon. the Minister and in respect of which I should like to ask him to negotiate with his colleague, the hon. the Minister of Finance. It concerns this 4% sales tax. The list of goods which we received on which sales tax will not be paid, is in my opinion not complete enough. I viewed the matter in the light that everything which is used in the production process, should not in fact be taxed. However, there are a number of items which form part of my production process or of the Western Cape farmers production process which are not included on that list. For instance if I buy requirements for repairs, it is not included on that list, and I shall have to pay tax on it which will push up my production costs. If I buy feed for my cattle, it is exempted from taxation. However, if I buy mealie meal for rations for my workers, it seems as if I shall have to pay tax on it. I hope I am wrong. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, I want to congratulate the hon. member for Malmesbury on a very positive and valuable contribution which he made in this Committee this afternoon. I particularly want to congratulate him, as a practical farmer of the Western Cape, on having said here today that the farmers of the Western Cape can manage without Black labour and can in fact use the Coloured people of whom the hon. member for Wynberg spoke so di sparingly a few minutes ago when he said that they would not be suitable to work on farms.

I should like to express my concern today about the flow of red meat in particular from the farm to the consumer. On various occasions the hon. the Minister has said that he was able to buy a roast chicken in a restaurant in Sea Point at midnight. If he wanted to obtain a nice piece of beef or mutton, however, then it was not possible for him to do so. But there are some beef and mutton products which one can in fact get after hours in restaurants, and which one can also buy until midnight.

There are polonies, smoked cold meat, chompers, hamburgers and sausage. One gets all kinds of sausage, neatly packed. There is boerewors, beef sausage and pork sausage, some of them curried and others with garlick. This is what I should like to say a few words about today. These are products which are presented to the consumer under the label of red meat, products which, if they are manufactured according to requirements, can be a boon to red meat consumption in South Africa, products which should cause the flow of red meat from the farm to the consumer to increase tremendously.

Last year Dr. Willem de Klerk of the CSIR made analyses of samples of sausage purchased by him from 60 butcheries in Pretoria. Here in my hand I have a photograph, a cutting from the Rand Daily Mail of 10 August 1977 under the heading: “From bad to wors.” Here we have a lady standing with a plate of “boerewors” in front of her, and the caption reads—

If one looks at the face of the lady who is holding the boerewors, then it looks as if she is holding something that a cow walks away from. I quote further from the same report—

I should like to quote from Hoofstad of 30.8.1977. The reports reads as follows—

I quote from The Star of 19.8.1977, from an article with the heading—

In the Rand Daily Mail of 11.8.1977 we read the following—

Mr. Chairman, I quote the following from Die Transvaler of 12 August 1977—

I think it is a crying shame that red meat, under the label of boerewors and beef sausage, be presented to the consumer in such a way as some butchers present it. I feel that the licences of these butcheries should be withdrawn immediately, or their names should be published in the Press so that the consumer may know not to support them.

I have here a copy of regulations issued in terms of section 42(3) of the Food, Drugs and Disinfectants Act of 1929. In these regulations we see that there are requirements which have to be met as regards the making of boerewors and other meat products, and I quote—

Mr. Chairman, I cannot see why boerewors or beef sausage should contain only 90% meat. Why can the meat content not be at least 95%? And while the hon. the Minister’s division of inspection services is investigating this situation at the moment, I want to ask the hon. the Minister to recommend that the meat content of boerewors and beef sausage should be at least 95%.

Beef sausage?

Beef, mutton and pork.

I quote further from the regulations—

Now I want to say that by the time a head of my cattle is slaughtered in Johannesburg one day, it has consumed a fair amount of maize. I am sorry for the hon. member for Carletonville and for the maize farmers who are struggling, but if I want to enjoy a nice piece of beef or boerewors, then I thoroughly enjoy to have mealie meal porridge with it, or a nice slice of brown wholewheat bread from Malmesbury or the Free State. But, please, do not allow mealie meal to be part of the sausage.

The regulation goes on—

And the above paragraph concludes with the words—

Sir, the meat content of beef sausage must be 75%. Now I ask for the elimination from beef sausage of the other ingredients, the origin of which is unknown to me, and which go to make up the remaining 25%. I ask, for the meat content to be made 95% as well when the regulations are drawn up.

Another regulation reads as follows—

Mr. Chairman, if the meat content in processed meat, mixed or simple, must be 95%, I cannot see why this cannot be the case too in respect of beef sausage and boerewors.

As regards processed meat products there is the following provision—

The meat content of these meat products, too, must be at least 75%, and I ask the hon. the Minister to provide that this figure be increased. This, too, can be 95%. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, all I can say to the hon. member for Kuruman, is: Thank you very much and hear, hear! He actually took one of my speeches away. What the hon. member said just now, is something which I mentioned earlier this year, i.e. that we have to extend the meat content in all spheres, and I think boerewors is an excellent example of this. If, therefore, he advocates a meat content of 95% in boerewors, I am with him. I think it is a great idea.

I, as well as the rest of us on this side am very fond of the Minister and the Deputy Minister. I think the hon. the Minister is one of the most agreeable Ministers in the Cabinet. Here we have a Minister to whom we can talk, but it does not mean that we cannot criticize him. People are talking about “Piet Promise”, but now I wonder whether it is going to be “Hendrik Harsings”, “Hendrik Hensop”, “Hendrik Hokaai”, or “Hendrik Hardekop”! In this stage I do not know what the name is going to be, but next Monday night we will see how stubborn the hon. Minister is or what brains he has.

Mr. Chairman, I want today to rebuke the hon. the Minister, and my speech deals with only one item. I trust that the hon. the Minister will not regard it in a personal light because it applies to the whole Committee; in other words I want to rebuke the whole of the Committee. We have sitting here with us between 30 and 40 farmers, and I want to refer to a certain day, i.e. 7 March, when I was ashamed of sitting in the House. I was ashamed but also disappointed when the debate on the Railway budget took place. That day was a black day for the farmers. It was a day we shall not easily forget. It was a day which made my blood boil, Sir, and I will not easily forget it. There were 135 Nationalists in the House and they all remained as quiet as the grave while I kept on complaining, shouting and performing. I shall quote what the hon. the Minister of Transport said, and I refer to column 2492 of the Hansard of 8 March 1978—

Unfortunately, I could not participate in the debate. The hon. the Minister of Transport also said the following—

The hon. the Minister attacked me there and I did not have a chance to reply. I want therefore to rebuke the hon. the Minister of Transport on this occasion, and I shall quote his next remarks as well. What the hon. the Minister said there was an exaggeration. I only interjected three or four times.

†Secondly, why make such a sneering and belittling statement to a farmer who really cares? “He says he is a farmer.” I am a farmer and I am proud to be a farmer.

*The hon. members here are farmers and all of them are proud of being fanners. Why did the hon. the Minister made that statement? Because I had the guts to stand up and say: “Gentlemen, you are now making a mess of the Railways; you are cheating these farmers.” Therefore I ask again, where were the hon. members on that day? Where was the hon. the Minister when the hon. the Minister of Transport was speaking? I ask all hon. members: Where were you on that day? Hon. members were all present but they sat as quiet as the grave. I was serious, Sir. I was angry. I think my blood pressure was three degrees higher. [Interjections.] Just give me a chance.

I want once again to quote the hon. the Minister of Transport.

This is not a Railway debate.

It is not a Railway debate but it deals with the price the cattle farmer has to pay. [Interjections.] The hon. the Minister of Transport said the following—you know what I want to say and therefore you want to silence me.

†The hon. the Minister of Transport said the following—

*A little further down the hon. the Minister of Agriculture said—

By this I merely want to indicate that he was present. It continues as follows—

†Sir, if this statement is not an infamous lie, it is a blatant distortion of the truth. It is a completely misleading representation of the facts. The insinuation on that day by the hon. the Minister of Transport was that railway tariffs increased by 110%.

Mr. Chairman, on a point of order: Is the hon. member allowed to refer in this Committee to a speech made by an hon. Minister in the House of Assembly as a blatant lie?

I said “is it”, Sir.

Didn’t I understand the hon. member to say that it was?

Mr. Chairman, I shall withdraw that remark if it is your wish, Sir, but I want to know if what I said is unparliamentary.

The hon. member must withdraw it anyway.

Mr. Chairman, I withdraw that. A railway tariff increase of 110% is utter garbage. I want to ask the hon. the Minister who sits here with us today why he did not interject at that stage. Why did he not say: “Lourens, jy praat nonsens,” instead of having said they have a good Minister. I want to read a quote from the Agricultural Union which addressed Mr. Bill Sutton directly after that. They say—

The Minister of Transport said that the producer price was up by 165%. What does that mean to this hon. Committee? What does it mean to the housewife? She got the impression that the farmer is better off than the Railways. The hon. the Minister of Railways said: “I do not begrudge them that increase,” but they did not get that increase. For five years the farmer has not had an increase in his product. 165% does not represent the average price. The hon. the Minister took out one section of it, i.e. slaughtered sheep. It was not cattle or pigs and this was not done prior to his own 400% Railways increase. Is this honest, gentlemen? I do not believe it. The hon. the Minister then said: “I do not begrudge the farmer this increase.” They did not have an increase. What if I had used his arguments? This hon. Minister of Agriculture would have slaughtered me and would have called me unpatriotic. He would have told me I was un-South African and I was not a farmer. If I had made those unrealistic comparisons which are in fact not true, that is what this hon. Minister would have said to me. I ask this hon. Minister why he did not at that stage correct these blatant and misleading facts which were broadcast over television?

*When all these hon. gentlemen had to vote, where were they? [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, it was my intention to reply at a later stage but the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg South said a few things which are, in my view, unfair to my colleague, the hon. the Minister of Transport, and I have to reply to those immediately. The hon. member said, in the first place, that there had been no increase in the price of beef during the past five years. I concede that meat farmers are having a difficult time, but the average floor price of grade 1A beef in 1972 was 44,1 cents per kilogram. Today, it is 95 cents per kilogram—an increase of 115%. How can the hon. member say, then, that there has been no increase to the farmer? [Interjections.] One cannot say that there has not been an increase during the past five years. I have just quoted the figures. The hon. member can check them in the digest of agricultural statistics. This is general knowledge.

One of the previous speakers said I had attempted to effect a change in the marketing system in consequence of the proposals by the Wentzel Commission and those of the Marketing Council that emanated from the report of the commission. What is happening to costs? In 1970, the Meat Board levy was 99 cents per carcase; today, it is R8,83. Of this amount, R4 was a special levy which we have now removed, and the amount is therefore now R4,83. The Meat Board insurance was 24 cents and it is now R1,02; abattoir commission levy was five cents and it is now 15 cents; the slaughtering fee was 82 cents and it is now R3,32; the abattoir fee was 93 cents and it is now R8,27; rail-age and transport charges were R2,17 and they are now R10,64. Compare this with the other increases. Agents’ commission was R3,83 and it is now R8,46. Sir, do I have to obtain permission from the Agricultural Union when I want to assist the meat farmers and want to negotiate something? It has been said that I “backed down”. I said the Agricultural Union should go into the entire matter again in co-operation with the Marketing Council. My entire action was directed precisely, at combating all these increases in costs. I have not mentioned all the cost increases yet. Transit insurance was 46 cents and it is now R1,06; in 1970 the total cost of an ox was R9,49—that included slaughtering and marketing fees and transport costs—and it is now R41,75. This is incredible but it is really and truly the case. These are facts I have mentioned here. The hon. member now says that we were all present when the hon. the Minister of Transport mentioned these matters and that nobody showed any reaction. In regard to overall cost increases, the ratio of transport costs to agents’ commission has remained the same; pro rata they have increased to the same extent. The hon. the Minister of Transport cannot run the Railways as a charitable organization. He told us that if we did not want to transport livestock by rail we should make use of road motor transport. He said he would grant licences and give authorization for transport by road. But road motor transport is not cheaper. Road motor transport may be cheaper if one transports sheep and if one can load them on a truck three deep. But the road motor transport of cattle is not cheaper. I am not quarrelling with the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg South. It is strange, but the debate in this Senate Chamber reminds me of a meeting of farmers’ society. I am even getting along well with the hon. member for Orange Grove today. I should perhaps point out to the hon. member not to create the impression that, at the time, members on this side accepted with resignation the tariff increases of the hon. the Minister of Transport. But the hon. the Minister of Transport spelled out every single item and gave reasons for the increases. The Railways dare not show a deficit because when that happens they have to be subsidized by the Government. Where does that money come from? It must come from higher taxes. The Railways must be able to function effectively under its own steam.

The hon. member for Wynberg touched on quite a number of matters. I want to say, to begin with, that I agree with everything he said, except when he paints a dark picture by saying that a quarter of the 76 000 farmers will have to leave their farms within the next 10 years. I differ with him entirely. He must not be so pessimistic. He mentioned seven possible solutions today but still did not penetrate to the root of the problem. He said the farmers were falling into debt more and more.

Agricultural debts amount to R2 500 million at present, whereas the farmer obtains only 5% on his investment. There are farmers who obtain 10% and even 12% on their investments. That is so where they bought their land at a low price before 1960, or if they inherited their land. If one takes the average where a person buys a maize farm at R500 per hectare or a wine farm at R2 000 per hectare at present-day prices, one finds that the position is entirely different to that of another farmer who owns a farm in the same district and who either inherited it, bought it before 1960 or married a rich wife. If the farmer married a woman who had a farm, he does not suffer adversity when it comes to the profitability of his investments. One can therefore not generalize when it comes to agriculture. The hon. member said the solution was apparently to be found in preventing price increases in respect of fertilizer, transport and fuel.

The hon. member now speaks of profitability on an investment. The fertilizer companies cannot attract any investments since they are limited to an interest rate of 10%. When they request the public to invest in a fertilizer factory on the open market, they are told that it is not worthwhile and that the public would rather invest with any bank at 10% without running any risks. There must be an incentive. When one wants to make something profitable one has to make its price rise. Certain raw materials are imported. Sulphuric acid, a component of certain types of fertilizer, is imported, and it is incredible how the price of this commodity has increased overseas. We do not manufacture tractors in this country. If America is in financial difficulty as a result of rising steel, labour and electricity prices, their tractors become more expensive; and we have to import them. As far as fuel prices are concerned, this Government can do very, very little about the matter.

Mr. Chairman, may I put a question to the hon. the Minister? Did the hon. the Minister read in the weekend newspaper that there is a certain person in the fertilizer industry who has made so much money from his industry during the past seven to ten years that he now has to insure his life for R15 million?

Suppose a person invests R10 million in an industry and makes a profit of 10% after tax on his investment. He then has a million rand, and within ten years he has R10 million. One needs money to make money. His industry overall is not all that profitable because he receives only 10% on his investment. When therefore such a person buys an aircraft or builds a fine home, people say: “See how profitable fertilizer is.” We can have long discussions about people who make a certain amount of profit every year, but many of them will tell us that they should rather have invested in something else ten years ago. If there is so much profit to be made in the fertilizer industry why are there no new entrepreneurs in the industry? Why do we not find anyone who is interested in starting a fertilizer factory? I want to go so far as to say that I shall obtain authority from the Minister of Economic Affairs for the IDC to lend money to those people to enter the fertilizer industry. However, one does not find people who are interested.

The hon. member also suggested that uneconomic farming units must be made economic. Our whole objective is to make uneconomic units economic by granting Land Bank loans to people who want to consolidate because at the moment the Department of Agricultural Credit and Land Tenure does not have sufficient funds. A number of years ago there were 125 000 farmers in South Africa and it has not been as a result of the policy of the Government that this number has decreased to 78 000 or 79 000 today. The farmers themselves have been responsible for this. Hon. members must realize that when a price is determined for an agricultural product it is determined on averages. This is the case in regard to maize, the floor price of meat, milk, etc. When one works on an average, one has 50% below it and 50% above it. The profitability of the 50% which is above average is such that it is greater than that which is below average, with the result that the one below average is bought out. There is no unused agricultural land in the country. When one works with averages there is only one solution for the man with the small profit margin, namely that he has to operate more efficiently. He must no longer be satisfied with obtaining only eight litres of milk a day from a cow; he must strive to obtain 12 litres per day. That is what has happened in agriculture during the past ten years. There has been a vast increase in production. That is why we have surpluses today. Freight charges have become very expensive but it is nevertheless necessary to export.

It is easy to tell the housewife that she has no choice and that she has to pay a higher price for a product. But we have had good rain years, and one must see all the different factors in their true perspective. It is our objective however, to have as many economic farming units as possible. One can say now that an economic unit in the Western Transvaal is 400 ha today; but in ten years, the margin of profit may perhaps be so low that an economic unit in that area will be 600 or 700 ha. That is the irony of the matter. However, one thing must be very clearly understood, namely that the policy of the Minister of Agriculture in America is not my policy or the policy of this Government. His slogan is: “Get bigger and get better or get out.”

In this country we cannot afford the injudicious depopulation of the rural areas. From a political and a strategic point of view that is undesirable because one has extensive areas where one would like to have White people living in peaceful surroundings. The hon. member for Mooi River is quite correct. The Black man is not oriented agriculturally. Let us call a spade a spade. One can go and ask people in Malawi which is a friendly country, how many grain silos are in existence there. They say that the farmers produce for their own needs. If a farmer needs 40 bags of sorghum or maize, and he has a harvest of 80 bags, he is not inclined to plough again during the succeeding year. I am not speaking disparagingly of the Black man in South Africa because that is part of his make-up. Why must one always keep silent about this? That is why there is always famine in such countries when there is drought. They do not follow a Joseph policy; during the good years, they do not put away something for the bad years. We are always reluctant to give these things a name; but in our country that is not the case. The farmers have more initiative because they enjoy land tenure. This is not a chieftainship system or a communal system where nobody has title to his land. Ask Paramount Chief Matanzima of Transkei whether he will grant a single one of his farmers title to his land. We ask why a Black man does not plant a tree and why he does not develop the land, but if I want to know that I could be told by the chief tomorrow to leave my land, I would not plant a peach tree either. I would eat peaches but I would not plant a peach tree. I would not be interested in developing agriculture. It takes generations before one can instil this principle in people.

The hon. member spoke about good housing and about the provision of employment opportunities. I agree with this and I also agree with the idea of the improvement of schooling facilities for workers. But it will cost money to implement the recommendations in regard to land reform. However, I do not differ with the hon. member for Wynberg in this regard.

As far as the budget is concerned, the hon. member asked why certain food subsidies had been decreased. In the case of butter the subsidy has been decreased by R2 million. The hon. member also inquired about subsidies on agricultural products. When we determine the price of bread, the costs of the baker, the miller and the farmer must be taken into account. We then arrive at a gross amount and realize that unless we want the price of bread to rise we need a certain amount of money to keep the price at its existing level. Electricity has become more expensive and the farmers’ production costs have risen. They did not get any price increase for wheat last year. The Cabinet takes all these factors into account when deciding whether or not bread should become more expensive. If bread is not to become more expensive or if the price is not to rise in proportion to the increase in production costs, we now need R45 million to keep the price at the present level. Who must administer this subsidy?

Social welfare.

It cannot be the Department of Social Welfare and Pensions because they do not understand the system. Let us take maize as an example. If we ask the Department of Social Welfare and Pensions to administer the R50 million for the storage and handling of the maize harvest it simply will not work. But I am pleased that the hon. member mentions this, because I want to point out that this is not a subsidy for the benefit of the farmer but for the benefit of the consumer. With every price announcement I state that this is a consumer subsidy, and the farmer understands this very clearly.

He is the one who suffers.

The farmer does not really suffer because psychologically he has become used to this. The amounts that have been voted for research in respect of the various agricultural votes have been increased but there are very good reasons for this. There are study groups and economists who visit farms. I know a Karoo farmer who is a member of a study group and he told me recently that his expenses in groceries were so much per sheep, that his expenses in employees were so much per sheep, that the running costs of his bakkie were so much per sheep and so much per hectare, etc. With the assistance of these two departments, the farmer has received the necessary training to be able to do this. As a result of the cost pincer farmers are today making calculations to see whether they will ultimately make a profit.

The hon. member for Bethal is chairman of the agricultural group on this side of the House. As chairman of the commission in particular he opened up new vistas for me this afternoon as a result of his positive attitude. He says the Agricultural Union contribution gives the farmer the opportunity to have a greater participation in marketing. That is the only object. It is not a contribution for the S.A. Agricultural Union only; it is to place the Agricultural Union in a position which has for a long time been the case with wool. Wool producers paid a levy to the NWGA. This is now applicable to all commodities. It may happen that a certain agricultural industry may request an investigation into costs. Funds are now available for that. I have mentioned previously the training of Black workers at Boskop, near Potchefstroom for the benefit of farmers generally. This is an overall amount which is levied and in future this will take place to an increasing extent. Let us understand one another clearly. The hon. member for Mooi River has told me this very clearly. He is a member of organized agriculture; he is a member of the S.A. Agricultural Union. Sir, what farmer is not part of an organization which is not a pressure group, which is not a bunch of negative critics but which comes along with plans and suggestions and ideas on how welfare, marketing, etc., can be improved? I want therefore to thank the hon. member for Bethal very much indeed. He talks of the food basket, of the farmer’s share that is shrinking. That is true. The farmer’s share is becoming smaller and smaller in the cost of that food basket. I have mentioned this example to you before. When you buy a tin of pears or peaches you must remember that the peaches and pears in that tin now represent only 22% of the cost whereas at one stage it was almost 30%. It is becoming smaller and smaller. The tin, the label, the sugar, the transport, the labour and the electricity are all becoming more expensive. One has to be competitive. There is only one place where one can save. One can do nothing about the price of the tin. One can only save as far as the farmer is concerned and what is his only solution? If one says that one’s price for peaches is R100 a ton and one makes it R95 a ton because one cannot afford more, what is the farmer’s reaction? He says: Then give me the research, the correct plant material and the correct root-stocks so that I can break away from this nonsense of 12 to 15 tons per hectare. Give me the chance to produce 20 or 25 tons per hectare. That is the reaction of the farmer in this country. We must cultivate the same soil, my dear friends. When I came to this Parliament, we spoke of an all-time record maize harvest of 47 million bags. Today, a maize harvest of 60 million bags is an all-time crop failure because we cannot cover our costs with it. That is the direction we have taken.

The hon. member for Mooi River spoke about the study groups and the enthusiasm and said “then it fades away”. Sir, this may indeed be true in certain cases and we shall have to attend to it; but it depends on the guidance of the agricultural extension officer and the attitude of the farmers’ association.

Now, the hon. member told me that there was an instruction by the Agricultural Union in Natal that the statutory levy should be continued. We have reached the end of the road and maize farmers must now become reconciled. If we are wrong and if SAMPI is correct, we shall have to decide. He wants to know what my attitude is to SAMPI. I acted as chairman for two years in an effort to reconcile SAMPI and the Agricultural Union. I told the Agricultural Union these people had a point. They came into existence as a result of the idea of specialization; I agree that we must specialize. But, Sir, there are certain elements that one cannot bring together in this case.

I have said all along that the Agricultural Union is the only mouth-piece of the farmer which enjoys the recognition of the Government. If SAMPI were to vanish tomorrow and a new organization were to come into existence, what would the attitude of this Government be? I say the hon. member is worried about the price of maize. What about the man who buys the maize to use it for feed? SAMPI’s proposal for this year’s maize price was R95 per ton to the producer. The Maize Board’s proposal is generally known; it was R79,35. And, Sir, the Maize Board was right. The Maize Board was 100% right and I want to reaffirm that fact. From the point of view of the burden of debt of the farmers, I felt that we should make it a round figure of R80. I said this in view of the financial setbacks of the farmers and their burden of debt which is increasing. The hon. member for Mooi River is quite correct. If we had agreed to the price of R95 per ton, what would the consumer have had to pay? But we told the maize farmer: In the past you had a profit on exports of R3 a ton and you subsidized the consumer from that profit. We have said all along that the day would come when we would not be able to export at a profit. It is not because the world price is low. The world price of maize is now R112, far higher than ours. But freight, domestic transport and insurance costs have resulted in the fact that at the moment we cannot contribute all that much for the consumer from the export profit. Can you imagine what the consumer would have had to pay if the price had been R95 a ton? After all, he also had to make a contribution in respect of the loss on exports which we handled differently in the past.

Sir, you ask for an impartial arbiter. You can bring the Angel Gabriel and tell him: You are the impartial arbiter. There are certain elements here which one will never be able to reconcile. And I have said all along that they are my fellow-farmers. I have never played politics with agriculture, Sir. We do not have one price for a loaf of white bread for a Black man and another price for a loaf of white bread for a White man. We have only one food price. I need the sympathy of the consumer but I also want the consumer to have sympathy for the producer. And these maize farmers are all members of the food producers in this country whom I am trying to assist. I do not want to force it down their throats but I just want to tell them one thing. Here you have a specialist organization in SAMSO. The Government only recognizes SAMSO and the S.A. Agricultural Union. Bury the hatchets and co-operate with SAMSO. And if certain frictions among you can be eliminated I shall do anything I can to eliminate them.

The hon. member for Graaff-Reinet expressed appreciation for the reports. It is very nice when the department is thanked for its reports now and then. I appreciate that. The thanks are not due to me, but to the officers of my departments.

Then there is the floor price and the changes in the meat scheme. The hon. member for Eshowe and the hon. member for Kuruman referred to this. You know, I find it strange that when one talks of a conservative floor price the farmer immediately gets the idea that there is to be a reduction in the floor price. But the floor price is a guarantee, a form of security for the farmer; he will not receive a price lower than that. The hon. member for Eshowe and the hon. member for Graaff-Reinet explained this very well. It is no use giving me a floor price of 115 or 120 cents per kg. for which I clap my hands and say: “This is a wonderful floor price,” but then when I want to put my produce on the market, they tell me: “No, you cannot load your 100 head of cattle, you can only load 60.” What is the use of such a floor price?

I come back now to the argument by the hon. member for Orange Grove. There is one thing he forgets.

†He asked the question: What are you going to do about the broiler industry? The broiler industry today is a factory industry and they have got all my sympathy, but what has happened in the meat industry?

*In 1973, the total per capita consumption by Black and White in this country was 26,9 kg of beef. Let us leave mutton alone for the time being. Last year the consumption declined to 23,9 kg. There was a decline in the per capita consumption of these products. What happened to the broiler chicken? The consumption was 3,6 kg in 1970 and 8,2 kg in 1976. At present it is almost 9 kg. That is how the per capita consumption of broiler chickens has increased at the expense of red meat. What is the solution? Must we provide subsidized maize for an industry with a feed turnover such as that of the broiler chicken industry and be saddled with 9,4 million head of cattle in this country as against 8 million head of cattle eight years ago? After the livestock reduction scheme the sheep population numbered 28 million. It is already almost 32 million again. What is the correct thing for a Minister of Agriculture or for a responsible government to do? Here, we have all these farmers farming extensive areas of our country who are dependent on beef and mutton production, whereas one has a broiler chicken industry which can advertise broilers at 95 cents per kg and force the market in that direction. How? If they can do that, then good luck to them; but not on subsidized maize. Then all things must be equal. If there were to be a drought or a fall in the wool price and there was to be intensive marketing of mutton, we would have difficulties. Let us not have any illusions about this.

†The hon. member for Orange Grove complained about certain reports being available only in Afrikaans. He said he was getting sick and tired of it. The only unhappy thing that has happened this afternoon is that the hon. member is sick and tired of having reports from the Department of Agriculture in Afrikaans only. There are only two reports. In the case of the report of the Abattoir Commission—that was the one he insisted upon— translation would have been a waste of money. I am not prepared to cross swords with the hon. member but I think behind it all was the political idea of embarrassing the Minister. At one stage we had correspondence with each other through certain English Sunday newspapers. He threatened to approach the Minister of Justice; he threatened to go to court but nothing happened.

It is still under investigation.

You can investigate till you are blue in the face, I don’t give a damn …

Order! The hon. the Minister must withdraw that word.

I beg your pardon, Sir. I withdraw it. I don’t give a sixpence! I think that where money is at stake we should have a summary in English and the global report in Afrikaans. Next time we could reverse the position and have the entire report in English and a summary in Afrikaans. This will save money as far as the department is concerned. I must add that about 85% of the farmers are actually Afrikaans-speaking. When the hon. member says he is becoming sick and tired of this sort of thing, I can tell him and Mrs. Helen Suzman that I am getting sick and tired of never hearing a question or a speech from their side in Afrikaans. It cuts both ways. The hon. member for Mooi River, the hon. member for Wynberg and the hon. member for Pietermaritzburg South don’t only ask questions but make speeches in both languages. Cannot Rupert Lorimer do the same? But the hon. member for Orange Grove is getting sick and tired of me and my department because we issued two reports in only one language! I wrote the hon. member a letter in which I apologized and said that the report was only in Afrikaans in order to save money and that we were sending him an English summary. I do not think the hon. member played the game this afternoon.

The hon. member also said that in the Minister’s eyes the consumer always came second. Why did the hon. member say that? How can the hon. member say that the consumer always comes second. That is really not the case. What will happen if there are surpluses and I have lost the sympathy of the consumers and I want the consumers to co-operate with the department?

He is a “boerehater”.

Order! The hon. member must withdraw that.

I withdraw it, Sir.

The hon. member for Orange Grove has the gift of saying one thing in one sentence and saying the complete opposite in the following sentence. He said there was no stability for the meat farmers; they were receiving less than they received in the past. So he gets the sympathy of the meat farmers. But then he says that he agrees with the proposals of the Marketing Council. He then said that the Abattoir Corporation should not take over any abattoirs and that he deplored the idea …

No, “applaud” the idea.

Did you applaud the idea that it should not take over any further abattoirs?

Yes.

In any case, Mr. Chairman, I can go to the City Council of Johannesburg and tell them: “When the cost of the abattoir was estimated at R24 million you told the then Minister of Agriculture that you were not prepared to build the abattoir.” What happened then? The Abattoir Commission at that stage built that abattoir and it cost nearly R48 million. At the moment the City Council of Kimberley finds itself in great difficulty. I am going to tell them that the hon. member for Orange Grove says we must not take over their abattoir; let the taxpayers of Kimberley pay for the erection of that abattoir. That is what the hon. member for Orange Grove proposes.

That is also the proposal of the Marketing Council.

What is happening at the present moment at Krugersdorp’s abattoirs? They cannot carry on because the corporation has the power to allocate an average amount for different abattoirs. It is a question of robbing Peter to pay Paul. There are ways and means by which we can take these abattoirs over but I am pleased to hear that the hon. member for Orange Grove says that no further take-overs should take place. Am I correct?

Yes.

You are going to regret that.

I agree with the hon. member for Malmesbury that we must not allow migration of our labour force. If there is a sufficient number of Coloureds in an area who can do the work, why should one disrupt the lives of people who are settled in an area by bringing in people from other areas to do the work?

The hon. member did not say everything he wanted to say about the turnover tax but there are still matters which must be clearly spelled out.

The hon. member for Kuruman spoke about the passage of red meat from the farm to the consumer. This is one of the proposals that are again under consideration. I agree with him. If I want to buy a piece of fillet steak later tonight, why can I buy only chicken? I can get the chicken either raw or broiled. One must be like the drop of water on the roof—one must persist with something and then one will ultimately have one’s own way. The hon. member for Orange Grove also said I was tactless. I think I sometimes have a lot of tact by persisting and persisting until ultimately the proposal comes from those people. Then it is passed. One should just not say however, that the proposal comes from one’s own side. I am sorry this is in Hansard.

I shall not be much longer, Mr. Chairman; I shall reply to the other points at a later stage. I just want to correct the hon. member. We must be careful that we do not make the same mistake in connection with sausage that we made in connection with wool at one stage. The hon. member for Graaff-Reinet will agree with me. When we spoke of pure wool, I said at the time: “If you can’t fight them, join them.” I said if we could not beat synthetic fibres then we should also use them; mix them with wool. We cannot say that a hamburger or a frankfurter must have a meat content of 95%. Mix it with some mealie meal or coarse meal or soya bean meal just to get the price right so that the lower income groups can afford it but so that the meat content is nevertheless 80% or 70%. I saw that in England and in Germany.

They now put all sorts of rubbish into it.

Yes, I agree. One of the men who made an analysis said he even found a fly-button in a piece of sausage! It was in the newspaper. I just wanted to mention that, Sir. We can go into the position. In the case of certain types of sausage we can stipulate conditions but, as a whole, we must try to put a cheaper product on the market so that the lower income groups can afford it. I shall give the hon. member another chance to speak on Monday and I shall reply to him again at a later stage.

Mr. Chairman, after the hon. member for Kuruman had spoken I had such a craving for meat that I felt that I had to go and grill some meat. Now that the hon. the Minister has given the information to our people that they required, I feel there is not much more to say. The figures that were given, speak for themselves. However, being a farmer myself, I do want to mention some of the bottlenecks we experience in the meat industry. In these difficult times our farming community in the meat-producing sectors of our country experience many bottlenecks. In my constituency alone I have 34 farmers’ associations. There is hardly a farmers’ association that does not mention these difficulties experienced by the meat industry, bottlenecks with regard to the marketing of meat specifically, under the existing marketing system. We find this on the part of individual farmers as well as the agricultural unions. What I find extraordinary is that where a solution has to be found, the efforts of the Marketing Council, of the Wentzel Commission that was appointed and of the hon. the Minister and the hon. the Deputy Minister to eliminate certain bottlenecks are being made suspect. I feel that we are not being honest in this regard. I have here in my hand a report of an agricultural union congress held last week in which it expresses its dissatisfaction because it is afraid that the Minister will prejudice the existing marketing scheme to the detriment of our farmers. This is because the hon. the Minister accepted the recommendations of the Marketing Council and will see to it that the bottlenecks mentioned in that report are investigated and that changes are effected. This congress which condemned the Minister also mentions the various bottlenecks existing in our meat industry. If our farming community and our farmers’ agricultural unions and congresses agree that there are in fact bottlenecks, why are we suspicious of the ideas of the Minister to effect changes for the benefit of our producers?

I want to tell the Minister that there are certain things with regard to which we will, of course, have to be careful. Recently I said at a congress that I tell a labourer three things, i.e., “If you do not hit me, lie to me or steal from me I shall pay you what you want.” Then one old Coloured man said to me one day: “Look here, Sir, I shall not do any of these three things but then you have to promise me only one thing and that is that you will not beat me, because, God knows, I have been beaten enough.” I say this simply to indicate that the farmers are afraid to make certain changes because we have had so many beatings in the past. However, I want to tell the hon. the Minister that as far as we are concerned, the farmers in general are looking forward to changes and approve of efforts to try to see whether these bottlenecks cannot be eliminated.

There are certain bottlenecks but there is one that has to be eliminated and to which particular attention has to be given, and that is to increase the consumption of our red meat. We find that the consumption decreased over the past five years by 13%, while the consumption of white meat increased by 9%. The consumption of white meat which could have been red meat is today the equivalent of 1 million head of cattle.

As the hon. member for Kuruman also indicated here, this is a bottleneck and efforts have of necessity to be made to bring the consumption of red meat back to normal once again. I admit that the purchasing power in this regard has, of course, decreased to some extent. We are, however, privileged that we are today, after three years, benefiting from the purchasing power of 35 million Blacks and that the Blacks today eat 13% more meat than they did five years ago. We have to make full use of this opportunity.

I want to ask that we do not stand in the way of the hon. the Minister. If all the agricultural organizations do, in fact, admit that there are bottlenecks, why then should we allow those bottlenecks to be condemned in the future simply because we are afraid of making changes? I want to ask the hon. the Minister to do his best to investigate these bottlenecks and that if certain bottlenecks make changes necessary and this does not work, he will do away with them and not enforce them.

The hon. the Minister is being accused of not having given full recognition to agriculture in the undertaking given by him. However, I know at least that when my hon. friend for Bethal was chairman of the Wentzel Commission there was evidence by agriculture in which they clearly set out the bottlenecks and the concern of agriculture in that regard. Therefore I doubt whether they are correct in saying that the hon. the Minister of Agriculture did not give them due recognition in this matter.

I trust that the marketing of meat will be investigated carefully and that the hon. the Minister will investigate the question of consumption and the quota system.

My constituency is being threatened by drought today. There are hundreds of farmers with livestock which can be marketed but they are simply not able to market them. There are farmers who have fed their cattle for six months, and whom I have mentioned to the hon. the Minister, who cannot get a quota today. That is why I say that if there are people who are not prepared to allow the hon. the Minister to investigate these matters to see whether improvements can be effected, they do not really know what is happening in agriculture.

In these threatening circumstances—and you know that my constituency is bigger than the Free State—there are certain things that have to be done or else these farmers will be ruined. I want to request the hon. the Minister to look after the lot of the farmers in my constituency with a view to the future.

When, years ago, changes were effected in the marketing of wool in the wool industry, there was much bitterness. The hon. member for Graaff-Reinet knows that and where we recently met the Wool Board and learnt about the marketing of wool, we want to convey our appreciation to him for what he has done in this regard. I want to convey my appreciation on behalf of my constituency to a person who knows where it comes from and what it has cost to institute this new marketing system.

There is not another industry today where there is more contentment than in the wool industry. Why? Because changes were effected in the interests of the producer. Today all the producers are grateful, even those people in my constituency who attended the congress and vented their spleen about the changes from fear that the old marketing system would be prejudiced. Today they are all grateful that the new marketing system was in fact instituted, and there is not another industry in the country with as much stability as our wool industry.

If I may make a recommendation today, I should like to say to the hon. the Minister that there is one thing that we have learnt over the years from the wool industry and the wool marketing system, and that is that we shall have to build a pool scheme into our meat marketing system later on. If this pool system is introduced, our farmers will take note with great appreciation of the changes to the benefit of meat producers in general. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, while listening to the debate this afternoon I could not help thinking about the joke about the man who was very rich. When someone asked him, “To what do you attribute your wealth?” he replied: “Well, I had a very good partner; I had the experience and he had the money. Now I have the money and he has the experience!” This reminds me of the position of the farmer today. Apparently the farmer has the experience but other people in our country make the money!

Tonight I want to say a few words about the stock reduction scheme which, with the exception of a few cases, one can say has come and gone. Sir, I want to speak with only the highest praise of this scheme because, in spite of tremendous criticism from some quarters, it is very clear that this scheme has been of tremendous advantage to us and that it was not only desirable but also vitally necessary for our country.

As a result of long droughts our veld suffered damage and simply could not have been restored had we carried on with the ordinary farming methods. It was therefore necessary, if we did not want to force stock farming in this country to come to a standstill and if we did not want to force some farmers to find another livelihood, for a start to be made with the introduction of this scheme. Therefore I feel that, in spite of destructive criticism of the scheme, it definitely produced successful results on which we can look back today.

Our veld improved considerably. It has been established that it did not only improve with regard to the percentage covered but that its composition also improved. This is noticeable, especially in the grassland regions and also where there is the transition from grassland to Karoo veld. In my district alone there are at present pieces of land which consisted of brackish land; in fact, I can almost say that there were some morgen of such land where today grass and bushes are growing and this is simply as a result of the stock reduction scheme and as a result of the fact that the farmer applied soil conservation schemes.

It would certainly be unrealistic to expect the land to have recovered completely within a period of five years, but the scheme did indicate the correct procedure for the future with regard to land that had been used incorrectly for many years. A higher production of wool and mohair is reported and there are also more lambs and calves. Lambs can now be marketed much earlier than before, and it is clear that there is a saving with regard to feeding costs to the farmer, something which cost him a lot of money before this.

What is important, however, is that the scheme drew attention to management which resulted in changes for the best. It was realized that a smaller number of stock of a better quality could give the farmer a higher income. The scheme was particularly welcome, to the small-scale farmer because he could reduce his stock for a consideration and in this way his land could rest. It is true that many of these small-scale farmers did not return to their farming but this might, to a certain extent, even have been a blessing because consolidation of these small units with existing bigger units could be effected and in this way we were able to establish more economical farming units.

Mr. Chairman, it has to be stated frankly that the biggest break-through with regard to this system is the change in the outlook of the farmer, and to my mind it is very important to dwell for a moment on this fact. The money spent on this scheme was undoubtedly money well spent if we take into consideration the change of outlook there was. In the first place farmers today realize that it is very important for them not to overload their veld. There is appreciation for more knowledge in respect of the veld and how to control it more effectively. There is also a realization of the necessity for the installation of the necessary facilities to give effect to better veld management.

However, the scheme also had its educational value. Participants had to gain more knowledge about their veld. There had to be more contact with the excellent extension service that has been placed at the disposal of the farmer free of charge. Many positive results have been achieved the value of which in my opinion we will not easily be able to determine in the future.

Although we say all these positive things about the scheme, I want to emphasize what I said just now, i.e. that there was a change of attitude. However, I am concerned about the question of whether or not we will in fact be able to maintain this change of attitude. I hope that we will be able to do that. But when we look at the present position it remains a fact that prices have increased. The price of red meat and wool increased and it was clear that a great future awaited the farmer. But then these farmers returned to their farms and they had to purchase the stock with which they had to make a new start at very high prices. They had to try to stabilize their pastures and to utilize the pastures that had been restored in such a manner that they would not damage them again. It is in this regard that some of the farmers are having a hard time today.

The fact remains that these farmers suddenly found that if they introduced pasture control, if they wanted to farm those farms properly and save the veld in the way in the way it should be saved, they simply could not get the necessary income from their land. It is in this regard that I want to make a plea today. Since rules and regulations do exist in terms of our soil conservation scheme, the State will have to see to it that it is implemented. We cannot allow what has been built up over a period of five years in South Africa simply to be destroyed once again as a result of overloading. And we have seen examples of this overloading during the past year when the price of red meat decreased. Farmers felt then that they could simply not sell at those prices, and I do not blame them because they realized that they could not get the income to cover their costs. And what was the result? Farms were overloaded because many head of livestock were not sold. We find today that many farms are overstocked and it is in this regard that I feel that it is necessary, whether we are going to be popular or not, simply to implement those rules.

Mr. Chairman, if we take into account that there are at the moment 26 million people in South Africa who have to be fed, and that it is estimated that by the year 2000 there will be 52 million, I think that the words of Cecil Rhodes are very appropriate today, i.e. “So much to do, so little done.” We shall have to get started and we shall not be able to improve conditions simply by improved farming techniques or methods. We as human beings have been placed on this earth to rule it, and we cannot destroy what we have been put in charge of. Surely our idea must be that what man is in charge of he should at least preserve. Where at the moment it is estimated that half a hectare of land is necessary to keep a person alive, there will only be quarter of a hectare available by the year 2000. We are therefore moving in the direction of famine; that is where we may end up. That is why I want to ask now that we conserve the soil we have because it is after all the most important item in the progress and survival of man, and that we implement the rules that we have learnt over the years, namely that we have to comply with the soil conservation rules. By whatever means the farmer must be compelled to comply with these rules if he wishes to conserve our valuable soil.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Aliwal North referred to the stock reduction scheme, and quite rightly he has drawn attention to the fact that if a considerable amount of money is going to be put into the stock reduction scheme the situation cannot be allowed to persist where people then overstock again, costing the State a lot of money and ruining the land all over again. Once we have gone to the trouble and expense of operating a stock reduction scheme, we have to see to it that the land that has been restored is kept that way. As he quite rightly says, a considerable responsibility is going to rest on the agricultural industry in the future, and if the agricultural industry is going to cope in any way with supplying the necessary foodstuffs we cannot afford to waste any ground at all. Land must certainly be looked after.

The hon. member for Prieska, I thought, made a very interesting speech. He again talked about meat marketing and he described the situation of many cattle farmers who have cattle on their farms for six months at a time when they should be taken to market. Here again, the report of the Marketing Council, I would say, agrees with this. It has obviously looked at a situation like that where cattle are kept for six months when they should have gone to market, and has realized that this, of course, is a great expense to the farmer. It should not be happening. There is an economic stage when cattle should be marketed and, when they are not marketed, obviously this is to the detriment of the whole economics of stock production. It is highly inflationary. He talked about the good situation prevailing in the wool industry. The only thing I can say in that regard is that it is easy to have stability if the price is right. There is a different situation existing in the meat industry at the moment. Although control in the wool industry has been of benefit—I will be the first one to say so—it is much easier when the price is right to have that situation persist.

It has a good board.

Perhaps the hon. member on that bench is telling me that the Meat Board is a bad one. I am not quite sure and if that is his argument we are in a different situation.

Sir, when I sat down earlier I was discussing the question of the support of members on these benches for the recommendations made by the Marketing Council. Centralized abattoirs and control, I believe, have resulted in larger overhead costs, crippling rail-age tariffs and monopolistic buying practices which have been to the detriment of both the producer and the consumer. In talking of this I should perhaps say to the hon. the Minister who talked about this whole situation of the Abattoir Corporation not taking over further abattoirs—I think his words in this regard were: “Ek gaan bars,” which he will too because this is going to be an unpopular move—that I want to put forward another option that was given to his predecessor when the Abattoir Commission came into existence. At that time the City Council of Johannesburg did not ask for it to be taken off their hands; they did not say the hon. the Minister had to set up an Abattoir Commission. They said they had limited means of raising capital and that if they were going to build and run a new abattoir, they wanted him to assist them in getting that capital. They said: “We would like you to lend us that money.” But they were quite prepared to carry on running that abattoir. In his wisdom the hon. the Minister’s predecessor decided that this was not to be and that it should be taken over under the control of the State. The result is that we have ended up with the situation where there are certain central abattoirs which now have to be protected because the capital investment is so enormous that that money cannot just go down the drain.

Sir, then we come to the difficult question of floor prices. In a way I was a little disappointed when the hon. the Minister gave his definition of what a conservative floor price was. I agree that it must not necessarily be the lowest. The Marketing Council’s recommendation is that the principle be accepted that floor prices should only serve as a protective measure against abnormal drops in prices, and with that I am quite happy. We are in total agreement with this recommendation. I can only express the hope that the hon. the Minister will not be talked into anything but acceptance of this principle.

He did not say so.

He did say so but then he backpedalled slightly and said that it was not going to be a low price. I think of necessity it has to be a bottom price. The description of it is a floor price. That is what it should be.

Must the present price be reduced?

I am not knowledgeable enough to say whether it should or should not. I am trying to lay down a general principle of what a floor price should be. Looking at the industry at the moment I would say that it should not be reduced. However, I am in agreement that one must set a floor price for a reasonable period of time too.

That is the lowest price.

Not necessarily the lowest price but a saving price. It must not be the price that it necessarily ends up at. I believe if one opens up a freer marketing system, one is going to be in a situation where prices do go up.

Sir, I realize, that farmers are very nervous about this whole question of the removal of floor prices or rather, the whole question of floor prices. They feel possibly that they need protection at a higher level. In practice I believe however that controls of this nature have gone a long way towards killing demand for meat in South Africa. As the hon. the Minister and hon. members surely know, the per capita consumption of meat has decreased considerably and, as the council points out, it is still going down. People are eating less and less meat. This is largely because they cannot afford to eat as much as they used to. My point in this regard is that the superstructure of existing control is very expensive in itself. South Africa’s cattle population has increased considerably of late. It has been upped to a fairly high level. There is congestion and oversupply on the markets. How are we going to deal with this situation? Quotas have had to be resorted to.

As the hon. member for Prieska has pointed out, quotas are most undesirable. They had to be resorted to in an attempt to control the position. Farmers have had to hold back cattle that should have been marketed. I feel very strongly that a freer marketing system will be a benefit to the farmer as well as to the consumer because there are numerous advantages not the least of which is that demand, so I believe, will be stimulated. It is far better for a farmer to sell his cattle at a slightly lower price than have them eating their heads off on his farm for six months at a time. This is what control has done and this is what quotas have done.

One must look at the existing situation as far as control at the moment is concerned. I would agree completely with the recommendation of the council again that restrictive registration should be done away with. I think I am quoting their words here, viz. “Butcheries in department stores are to a large extent controlled by a few meat wholesalers and in the opinion of the Marketing Council this is definitely to the detriment of healthy competition.” That is quite right, Sir. The sort of monopolies that exist in the meat industry—the meat marketing operation at the moment—are to the detriment of both the farmer and the consumer in the long run. In fact, one finds that it is the agents who have quotas. In many cases they are the people who own their own farms. They give precedence to their own stock before that of anybody else. They own feed lots; they have their own auction houses. They auction off themselves and buy at those auctions. Furthermore, they own wholesalers. Those wholesalers, in turn—not only as far as supermarkets are concerned—have many of the smaller butcheries under their control. It is not always directly but because in the past they have offered them more than reasonable credit facilities, the net result is that one finally gets the situation where the small butcher is tied to the wholesaler because that wholesaler keeps him in bond because of the credit given to him. Therefore that butcher owes the wholesaler a fair amount of money. It is very convenient.

I see the hon. member for Graaff-Reinet is showing me a newspaper cutting. Perhaps he will read it at a later stage. [Interjections.] As my hon. colleague says, they take commissions all along the way as well. The net result is that the farmer gets less and the consumer pays more.

Sir, I know that the South African Agricultural Union has expressed a contrary view and that discussions are taking place between the hon. the Minister and the Union. However, I believe the time has come, during this debate, for the hon. the Minister to tell the Committee of his intentions in regard to how far he is prepared to go. He should tell us whether he is going to deviate at all from the recommendations of the Marketing Council. His earlier announcement was to the effect that he was accepting the recommendations and I would go along with that one hundred per cent; I applaud it. I hope the hon. the Minister is not going to deviate from it. I think it would be advisable for him to tell us what is going on at the present and what he hopes to achieve in the fairly short term. I must commend the hon. the Minister—this is something that I do not often say to him—for a fairly courageous decision but I hope that it is not going to fall by the way side.

You are making a very good speech.

Thank you, Sir. Again, that hon. Minister does say that sort of thing to me often. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Orange Grove will pardon me if I do not react to his speech. I am not an agricultural expert like that hon. member.

This afternoon I want to speak about Constantia. I want to look a little into the future and also, as is the case when one speaks about such an estate, look back a little. In looking back I want to quote something.

†I want to quote from the diary of Captain Robert Percival which was written in 1804, a year before the Battle of Trafalgar. He was one of the first tourists at the Cape. He wrote the following—

It is interesting to note that when one talks to the tourist or courier companies they tell one that after Table Mountain, Groot Constantia is still the biggest attraction in this part of the world. It is one of the first places where agriculture was practised in South Africa. For all practical purposes it is the first place in South Africa where agriculture was practised. It is also interesting that it is the last remaining place in the greater metropolitan area of Cape Town where agriculture is still practised. It is important that we look at this area because it is here where for all practical purposes Western man first looked down at the soil of Africa and began to break it for permanent habitation. It was here where Western civilized man first began to comb the wild virgin bush into ordered vinelands and farmlands. It was in 1685 that as a tribute for the work he had done, Simon van der Stel was given the farm Groot Constantia. In my view he was the first great South African. I say he was the first great South African because although many famous and great people came to work at the Cape either on transfer or to do a tour of duty, he chose to die here. He chose to retire here and to die here. This is a completely different emotional decision for a man to make. This profound decision he took shows the deep love that he had developed for the Cape, this land of his adoption, while he was here. There in Constantia he put down his roots, together with the oaks and the vineyards which he planted.

*You know, Sir, if a man plants oaks when he is old, it is a long-term investment. He knows he will never be able to sit in the shade of those oaks. Simon van der Stel knew that he would never drink the wines of which he laid the foundation. That is why I say that he was the first great South African.

†He died in 1712 and the farm was broken up and it is interesting to note that those farms into which it was broken up still exist. There were Klein Constantia, Nova Constantia, Bergvliet, Buitenverwachting, and so on. The wine industry which he established there became legendary in the sense that when one reads the history of the wine industry one finds that Wellington and Napoleon knew these wines. Legend has it that Napoleon, as he was dying, called for a glass of Constantia wine. We know that Louis Philippe, the King of France, Bismarck, Jane Austen, Alexander Dumas, Baudelaire and Longfellow all knew the wines of Constantia. The great houses which came into being as a result of those vineyards still exist and they became the platform of civilization in South Africa from which our whole culture grew. Great architects and artists also worked there, for example Thibault and Anreith, to name only two. Indigenous materials such as yellowwood and stinkwood were used there on a large scale for the first time. Great families, the life-blood of a nation, lived there, for example, the De Waals, Meyers, Cloetes, Lategans, Versfelds etc.

It is therefore in a very real sense that Groot Constantia was the fountain of our agricultural heritage. Time will not permit me to go into the full or recent history of Groot Constantia, but I would like to pay tribute this afternoon to the hon. the Minister of Agriculture. It is accepted—I say this with great sincerity—that he is one of the great Ministers of Agriculture, if not the greatest, that this country has produced. I want to suggest to him that in spite of all the good work he has done he will be remembered for what he did at Constantia. Because of the timelessness of Constantia, his name will be linked indelibly with what has gone before.

Constantia has an enormous amount to be grateful to him for, Cape Town has an enormous amount to be grateful to him for and South Africa has an enormous amount to be grateful to him for what the hon. the Minister did at Constantia. I want to tell him today that we in the Cape, and we in South Africa, are deeply grateful to him. He did three things that were very important.

The first thing he did was to rationalize the estate and bring in under the control of a single authority so that the project was made cohesive, made sense and could be run on an economic basis. This was done by means of the Groot Constantia State Estate Control Act. Secondly, the hon. the Minister bought the surrounding land that was threatened by high density development and encouraged other authorities, such as the Divisional Council, to do the same. He made it clear to the big landowners in the area that he regarded agriculture as being the predominant use and that he was not prepared to see prime agricultural land used for any other purpose other than that of agriculture. Those three things have had a profound influence on the valley and on the future of that part of our agricultural heritage.

In looking back I want to ask the question: But what of the future? The future of the agricultural portion of that valley is to a large measure dependent upon the health of the estate itself. An important factor in this regard is the economic size of the estate. The hon. the Minister has made a great contribution by making the estate a more economic size. He acquired the land of Hoop op Constantia and he encouraged the Department of Agriculture to transfer certain land to Groot Constantia. He is at present negotiating for the land of Nova Constantia to become part of the estate, a transaction which I hope will be successfully concluded. I would like to make one request of him, namely, that he consider amending the Groot Constantia State Estate Control Act to allow the estate in the first instance to lease land. It should be able to lease adjoining land where available for long indefinite periods at very low rentals. Presently, in terms of the Act, it cannot do so. Furthermore, if the estate wants to hire a house or a cottage for one of its senior staff, or junior staff for that matter, it cannot do so under the Act, and I would value the hon. the Minister looking at that aspect of things. I would also ask him to look at the Act in respect of allowing the estate to borrow money. The estate will have a cash-flow problem because large investments have been made there, of almost half a million rand in respect of buildings, of land and machinery, the updating and modernizing of the estate and increasing its production. There will be a hump which the estate will have to overcome during the period 1979 to 1981 because it will only be in 1982 that it will begin to sell the products from the investment that it has made over the past few years. We would also like to see a restaurant established on the estate but this will not be possible if one does not have the capital that would be necessary to build such a restaurant. I leave those few thoughts with the Minister for his consideration.

*I just want to say that Simon van der Stel made an enormous investment of faith in Constantia and in South Africa under extremely difficult circumstances. We in South Africa today are living in difficult times and in thanking the hon. the Minister, I also want to say that where South Africa is experiencing difficult times today, it is right that we should go back and re-establish our faith in the future of Groot Constantia. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, I want to congratulate the hon. member for Maitland on his positive contribution and say that I intend to try to make a positive contribution too. Sir, agriculture is experiencing hard times but agriculture is also receiving many blessings. One of these blessings is Hendrik Schoeman. The hon. the Minister, the hon. the Deputy Minister, their departments and officials, are the consolation of the farmer, his support, his pillars and his guides for the present and for the future. These departments are performing their tasks in a praiseworthy manner in that they ensure that no shortages of commodities occur at home and that we have enough left to supply a hungry outside world. Mr. Chairman, I should like to wish the hon. the Minister and his officials strength and wisdom, and I state with acclamation: Keep it up!

Since the hon. the Minister is displaying such a positive outlook and has shown that he is open to reason, I feel free to request a serious and urgent change and reshuffle in and re-organization of a section of his department of Agricultural Technical Services. With all due respect, I want to ask the hon. the Minister to transfer the regional head office in the Eastern Cape from Queenstown to the Agricultural Research Institute at Dohne near Stutterheim. This institute is the main research centre of the Eastern Cape region. As a matter of fact, in February 1965 the then Minister of Agricultural Technical Services formally announced that such a transfer should take place. Now, Mr. Chairman, I call upon the hon. the Minister to implement this policy as soon as possible. It is not necessary to explain to the hon. the Minister that this set-up is urgently necessary for the effective administration and coordination of the activities of the region and to eliminate the duplication of work and equipment. The department will not be the only one to benefit from a local unification of this nature but the region as a whole with its wide spectrum of farming activities and the large number of farmers as well. The establishment of the desired combination is vitally important for it constitutes an important phase in satisfying an urgent need that cannot be permitted to continue any longer, viz. an agricultural college at Dohne. Sir, this need is not confined to this region; the need for more accommodation at agricultural colleages exists everywhere in South Africa. This need increases every year. More and more of our prospective farmers have to be disappointed because they cannot be accommodated. This is the case in spite of the B.Agric. degree courses already being offered at three universities. This is so in spite of the agricultural courses that are offered at the technical college for advanced education in Pretoria. I do not want to bore the committee with figures, Sir, but just listen to what the actual situation is as regards applications for admission in 1978. There were 241 applications for admission to Elsenburg and the number that this college can accommodate is 122; in other words, exactly twice as many people applied as could be accommodated. At Cedara in Natal 185 applications were received, whereas they can only accommodate 130 students. Potchefstroom can accommodate 129 students and they received 183 applications. Grootfontein received 115 applications but has accommodation for only 100 students. As far as Glen is concerned, where they can accommodate 120 students, they received 149 applications. All in all our colleges can accommodate 601 students, while there were 873 applications this year. Only 69% of the applications could therefore be accepted.

Mr. Chairman, we are well aware of the fact that an agricultural college is being planned at Nelspruit. Naturally the training at Nelspruit will be such that the farming activities will be climatically orientated, i.e., sub-tropical. This college will not alleviate our need, Sir. Just listen to what constitutes the Eastern Cape region. It is the region south of the Orange River and east of the western boundaries of the following districts: Aliwal North, Molteno, Sterkstroom, Queenstown, Fort Beaufort, Adelaide, Bedford, Albany, Alexandria, Kirkwood, Uitenhage and Port Elizabeth. It covers 30 magisterial districts, covers 5,6 million ha and includes more or less 8 500 White farmers. The Eastern Cape region is the grassveld area of the Cape Province. It is pre-eminently a cattle farming region. It may well be said that the Eastern Cape is the stud kraal of the Republic. Breeding stock bred in this area are being used far beyond its borders.

Mr. Chairman, please note that Elsenburg at Stellenbosch is the oldest agricultural college in South Africa and was established in 1898. In the next 21 years, in other words up to 1919, four other colleges were established. From 1919 up to today not one single college has been established although there is one in the planning stage. I am not pleading for 8 500 voters; no, Sir, I plead for far more.

I am pleading for the successors of 8 500 farmers, i.e. one-ninth of the total number of farmers in the Republic of South Africa.

The hon. the Minister said the week before last that R70 million per annum was too little for agricultural research. Now I ask you, Sir, is it asking too much when I appeal for a capital investment of R25 million for an agricultural college? As far as agriculture is concerned, the Eastern Cape deserves a college, and secondly, history has proved that the Eastern Cape does have the human material.

Finally, just this thought, Sir. The land for the desired college has already been bought and adjoins the research institute. It is 3 km from the town of Stutterheim on the East London/Johannesburg main road. In other words, the infrastructure is already there. The only thing that is missing is the college in the shade of Dohne Peak at the foot of the Amatol a Mountains, a spur of the historic and well-known Winterberg.

Mr. Chairman, I am sure the hon. the Minister will have listened to what the hon. member for East Griqualand had to say. There is no doubt that the agricultural colleges in South Africa have made a major contribution to agriculture, but I would like to put forward a thought, and that is, that with the South African economy being what it is today, especially after what I have to say in the few minutes at my disposal, I wonder whether this is really the time to be considering spending a lot of money on additional agricultural colleges. I am not saying that they are not required at this stage; as I say, the need is there. If one looks at agricultural production in South Africa over the last year, one finds that we produced something like R8 000 million worth of agricultural products—I think it was in that region—and we were able to export well over R1 000 million, or even approaching R1 200 million worth of agricultural products. These are exports which made a major contribution to the favourable balance of payments last year. I take this opportunity of congratulating the farming community on making such an effort to help our balance of payments position. The point I am trying to make, Sir, is that already the degree of technology and the know-how of the South African farmer is one of the highest in the world, to the point where we are faced with certain problems. The one is spiralling costs and the other one is in many instances surpluses. The reason for this is that in certain sectors the market is actually falling and the reason for that is the recession we are experiencing in the country and that recession is creating unemployment. The main theme of what I have to say today, Mr. Chairman, is to try to analyse what is causing the present situation which I personally say is inflation, and to ask the hon. the Minister what he in his position can do about it.

Inflation in South Africa today is having a marked effect on the agricultural economy. Let us first of all take the rising costs we are having to face. I am now speaking to the farmers and, being a farmer myself, I know that I am among friends*. The rise in the cost of agricultural equipment and supplies has been considerable in recent years. I am not going to take issue with the hon. the Minister on his reply to my colleague because I know my hon. colleague is going to reply to the hon. the Minister. But I beg the hon. the Minister to have a look at the list of figures to which my hon. colleague has referred. These figures show that certain costs such as transport, abattoir fees, insurance and so on, have risen far in excess of the average price the farmer is getting for his product. The point I want to make is that there are certain sectors of the economy which are placing tremendous burdens upon agriculture. The result of this is that the farmer finds himself burdened with these excessively increased costs. He finds this in spite of the fact that he has made major advances in the productivity of his land, in technology, in improved seed varieties, in better management practices, agronomy and so on. In spite of the advances he has made in these respects, and through no fault of his own, he finds that the cost of his product has increased dramatically.

This raises the second point I want to put across this afternoon. What is the effect of inflation on consumer food prices? I think we must accept, and the whole country must accept, that agriculture, first and foremost, is a primary industry. It is one of the basic creators of national wealth in South Africa. It is a basic industry. Secondly, it is vital for the physical survival of our people. We cannot do without food and therefore I think it is totally unthinkable that the agricultural industry, or any sector of it, should be allowed to go bankrupt. Thus, Sir, it is inevitable that if we persist with inflation there will have to be increases in the price of food. Therefore, as a politician, as. unhappy a thought as it may be to some of us to have to say this to our people, we have to say to them that as long as inflation persists they will have to put up with increases in food prices. It is no good blaming the farmers or complaining about the farmers. Inflation is not of the farmers’ making. It is the result of the mismanagement of the economy, and not only the South African economy, Sir, but the economies throughout the Western world. I shall return to this a little later.

The third effect of inflation to which I should like to refer is the detrimental effect it has on the overall economy of agriculture. From a business point of view—I do believe we have to accept today that, with the vast capital investment we have made in agriculture, farming is no longer a way of life; it is really a business. From a business point of view the economics of farming are getting out of balance. While the increase in the prices of foodstuffs or the prices of agricultural products may go a long way in assisting the farmer to meet his rising costs, they do not give him any greater return on his capital investments. The hon. the Minister said earlier on that if a farmer comes into the agricultural industry today and buys land at present prices he will find there is absolutely no money to be made from agriculture. It is all very well for those farmers who have inherited their farms. But if one takes the value of farm land and tries to make a profit out of it, it is just not possible. I am sure that if the hon. the Minister—and I am sure he has these figures—had a look at the cost and price structure of agricultural products, he would find that the capital item in that cost structure, i.e., the return on capital investment, is being squeezed today to the point where, in many instances, very few people would think about putting money into agriculture.

I believe that this situation is a most unhealthy one. I say this because I believe that such a situation undervalues the prime resource of agriculture and that is our land. This is happening in spite of the improved technology which I have mentioned. Thus, while the basic asset had actually increased in value because of this improved productivity, when one considers its position in the total cost structure of agricultural products one finds that this asset is progressively becoming devalued. And this is the price we have to pay for inflation. There are dangers in this because we will find that farmers are no longer prepared to invest in the land, to improve agricultural production, to remove stones from their fields, to build better houses for their labourers, and so on.

I want to assure the hon. the Minister that when it comes to looking after the farmer, the members of this Party will support everything he does to see that the farmer gets a fair and square deal.

At this point I want to ask the hon. the Minister why he has not had a greater influence in the Cabinet in respect of the campaign against inflation? All the hon. members of this Committee are farmers, and as farmers we know where the real source of wealth lies. It lies in the proper exploitation of our natural resources such as our land and our minerals, our labour and our financial assets; in the use of technology and managerial skills to exploit these things to create wealth.

The hon. the Minister knows from his experience as a farmer as do these hon. members who sit in this Committee, that if you take more out of a farm or an economy than you put in, or than you create, you will eventually either depreciate your asset or go bankrupt. He knows these things and I therefore want to ask him why has he not used his influence to put the brake on this Government’s rape of our economy? Why has he not called for the same discipline on the part of his Cabinet colleagues when it comes to Government spending as the economy today is disciplining private enterprise and the farmers, the same discipline that the hon. the Minister being a successful farmer would impose upon his farm managers if they were getting their priorities wrong and were spending more than the farm was in fact earning? This is the question I would like to ask the hon. the Minister. Inflation in South Africa has got to be beaten, and the only way it can be beaten is to reduce Government spending. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Amanzimtoti will excuse me if I do not follow up his argument although he offered me such a pleasant holiday a few months ago. I want to thank him very much for that and I want to remain good friends with him.

Mr. Chairman, I am glad the hon. member for Maitland is also with us this afternoon and that he spoke about the beautiful estate at Constantia. I hope the hon. member for Paarl will speak immediately after me for I believe it is almost lunch time and just now we are going to have a glass of wine with our lunch.

In the first place I should like to express a word of gratitude to the KWV and the CWSI which know and recognize the wine group in Parliament each year by having talks with us. I think it is a very good custom on the part of the KWV and the CWSI and also on the part of estate owners to talk to us about the problems of the wine industry and the challenges which the industry has to face. Sir, by now you probably know me as a person who is very fond of the wine industry, and that is so because I have always regarded wine as a noble product. The Bushveld farmer is proud of his red afrikaner, the Freestater or the Karoo farmer is proud of his fine sheep and my hon. friend from Bethal is proud of the maize industry. Likewise I am proud of the product of the area from where I come, viz. the Boland and the wines it produces. Sir, with you, I am proud of the achievements, economically, socio-historically and otherwise, of generations of wine farmers in the Western Cape.

Apart from the fact that the KWV is marketing our wines abroad and propagating the good name of our wines, I should like to take up the cudgels for the private sector tonight. I am not going to mention any names but there are quite a number of them that are exporting wine and in that way, in spite of boycotts, keeping South Africa’s name on the lips of people abroad.

I want to issue a warning against two things tonight, however, and the hon. the Minister must help me in this regard. I want to issue a warning against trends which are developing here and there in the country. I am referring to what are called “wine festivals”. I am not opposed to cheese and wine evenings or wine festivals, but what worries me is that drinking competitions are being held on such occasions. My colleagues and I in this region are known for our opposition to the abuse of liquor. We are opposed to people creating the opportunity for giving this noble product a bad name by abusing it. I have here a small report to that effect which was published. Perhaps these people meant well when this occasion was arranged in Pretoria, but I did not like the report at all. It is stated in this report that apart from competitions for good prizes, apart from the merriment, there were also drinking contests. Sir, let us clearly understand that wine is a noble product which is to be enjoyed in a correct and civilized manner and when such functions are organized, care should be taken to ensure that this fine product is not abused and is given a bad name as a result.

Mr. Chairman, I want to touch on a second point. I think I would be the last person to say anything negative about such fine organizations like the KWV which represents the primary producer; the CWSI, the Cape Wine and Spirits Institute, representing the wholesale producers; and the CWC, the organization for the cellars and estate wines. I am the last person who would dare to say that these people or any of these groups would do anything that would be detrimental to the industry. I believe everybody is contributing to it in a positive manner. It is with regret that I have to raise the following matter but in this case too the hon. the Minister can help me. As I have said, these people are playing a great role in the development of the industry. Just recently at a venue at Montagu the hon. the Minister stated that the economy of the Western Cape was based on the wine and fruit industry. For that reason I am concerned about this industry being hurt. As was indicated in the report of the department there was a drop in the sale of wines, particularly of natural wines. That is why I am saying that the hon. the Minister can assist me in requesting these agencies that are so closely linked to the wine industry not to take their disputes to the newspapers. I have newspaper cuttings here from which I should like to quote.

In my opinion there was an unfair attack on the KWV last year. From these newspaper reports it appears that certain people expressed opinions at annual meetings and at dinners which in my opinion should not have been said and were not justified. Someone, a responsible businessman said, inter alia, the following at an annual meeting as regards the representations by the KWV to obtain licences for grocery shops—

That is not true in any case. The person continued—

Sir, I regret that this businessman should have said this. In my opinion the record of the KWV is absolutely clean and I do not think this fine organization would ever do anything to get its name so besmirched by demanding a freer distribution of wine in order to aggravate the abuse of liquor. We must get one thing very clear. The chairman of the board of directors also stated that one thing which the KWV has always advocated—and we who are involved in the wine industry are fully aware of it—and that is that not a single wine producer, KWV director or any person in the wine industry is striving for increased sales of wine in order to aggravate liquor abuse.

Mr. Chairman, I think the time has come for us to tell these people that wine is a delicate product. I know the KWV appeals regularly to various persons and bodies and also that the KWV and the CWSI have talks twice a year. Besides this, however, we must tell the people that because the wine industry is a delicate industry we must not do anything to harm the name and economy of the industry.

If there are any complaints the persons and bodies concerned should gather around a table and discuss the matter. In that way they can solve the problem, if there is one.

Mr. Chairman, I mentioned the decline in the sale of light wines. My hon. colleague from Paarl has already mentioned this in another debate and I want to repeat it here tonight. I think I can say that the hon. the Minister has made a contribution by telling the Treasury that because there was a decline in the sale of natural wines they should reduce the excise duty slightly. We are grateful for that, but perhaps I am giving the hon. the Minister unwarranted praise.

You must not say you think I helped.

The hon. the Minister is saying that he did, and for that we thank him. He did in fact help to persuade the hon. the Minister of Finance to give us a small reduction in excise duty. I am aware of the fact that other people also played a role in bringing that about, but we want to express our gratitude to the hon. the Minister.

Finally, I should like to mention one more figure, viz. the drop in the export figure of our wines, which is alarming. We are not a major exporting country as far as wine is concerned but, as far as quality is concerned, we are one of the best in the world. This is not only my opinion. The hon. the Minister also stated recently that our wines could compete with the best in the world. The hon. member for Maitland also said that the wines of Constantia are known all over the world to this day.

I mentioned that there are private sectors that are exporting wine. In spite of this the department mentions a decrease of 10,5% compared with the 1975-’76 report year. In the previous year there was a drop of 8,4%. This creates anxiety, for one can only grow … [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Worcester waxed so lyrical about the wonderful wines of the Boland that I need not say anything more in this regard. I want to congratulate him on his speech.

However, I do want to refer to what was said by the main speaker of the Official Opposition, the hon. member for Wynberg, and the hon. member for Amanzimtoti. They referred to the fact that our farmers are technically capable of efficient production today, but that they are suffering as a result of increasing costs and static prices. Mr. Chairman, that is true, but I should like to tell the hon. members who raised these points that one of the main components of production costs in agriculture is the price of land. It is a fact that the price of agricultural land today— the hon. member for Amanzimtoti also referred to this—is such that one cannot buy it and cultivate it economically. Now the question arises as to why this should be so. Is it because our farmers are good farmers technologically but that when it comes to the question of economics they turn out to be bad economists? Consequently they pay too much for their land. However, I want to correct myself immediately by adding that the farmers are not the only ones to blame for the rise in the price of land. This price rise is also caused by people in the professions and in commerce seeking to invest their redundant funds. They contribute to a large extent to the prices of land being forced up. This constitutes one of the main components of our production costs. As long as this endures, our farmers will have problems. However, to a certain extent our farmers are also to blame. Our big farmers, who are well provided with capital, all too easily buy their smaller neighbours’ land at prices that are not economical in terms of the production value of that land. Therefore our farmers are also to some extent responsible for that situation. While we can do nothing about it because the State cannot tell the farmer how much he should pay for land, and while we cannot do anything about the high price of implements, there remains only one option open to the farmer who wants to escape the pincers of high production costs on the one hand and low prices for his products on the other, viz. to farm more and more efficiently. To enable him to succeed in doing that we have three agricultural departments which can lend the farmer all the assistance and support he needs to enable him to run a farm successfully and economically.

Since I represent a Boland constituency, I want to convey to the hon. the Minister the gratitude of the farmers of that region for two institutions in the Boland that are doing wonderful work in assisting the farmer in his struggle to escape these pincers. I refer to the Fruit and Fruit Technology Research Institute and the Research Institute for Oenology and Viticulture. These are two research institutes that mean a tremendous amount to the farmer of the Western Cape. I want to pay tribute to the hon. the Minister and his departments tonight for the wonderful work they are doing through these two research institutes.

I want to begin with the Fruit and Fruit Technology Research Institute. Virtually all the types of canned peaches being canned and exported today were selected or cultivated by the Fruit and Fruit Technology Research Institute and its predecessor, the Department of Agriculture at the University of Stellenbosch.

These peach cultivars are so world renowned that they have been exported to many countries in the world. Nearly all dessert peaches that are being exported today have been cultivated by the Fruit and Fruit Technology Research Institute and its officials. Here I cannot refrain from paying tribute to Mr. Lourens Steyn who has already retired. We can call him the father of fruit cultivation in South Africa. The three most important kinds of peaches being exported today, viz. Culemborg, Swellengrebel and Van Riebeeck, have all been cultivated on South African soil. Unfortunately, the name “Swellengrebel” has been changed to “Rhodes” because the English could not pronounce the name “Swellengrebel”. Three apricot cultivars have been cultivated here. In this regard I am grateful that the latest cultivar to be released bears the name of Mr. P. A. L. Steyn, namely Palsteyn. This is an excellent apricot Four plum cultivars have been cultivated in this country, of which three have been released, viz. Harry Pickstone, Ruben Nel and Sungold, while a fourth is on its way. In my opinion the fourth is the most promising. Some of these cultivars have already been exported to Germany this year and the reports on them are excellent.

As regards table grapes the institute has already released a few cultivars. One of them was in fact not cultivated here but in Israel. It was however imported, evaluated here and released and already appears on the export list. I am now talking about the cultivar Dan Ben Hannah. However, there is also a locally cultivated cultivar, viz. Bien Donne, which was cultivated at Bien Donne and which has now been released. Initially it was only for the local market but it also appears on the export list now.

I have only referred to the cultivation aspect of this institute but there are numerous other aspects of research that this institute deals with and which unfortunately I cannot refer to because of my limited time. However, I want to pay tribute to the wonderful idea of Dr. Piet Marais, the director to this research institute, who also sets the farmers to do research and to write down the results of their research in his so-called “Boeretreffers”. In this way he achieves far better results and I should like to pay tribute to him for doing so.

In the few minutes left to me I also want to pay tribute to the work being done by the Research Institute for Oenology and Viticulture. This institute is much younger and consequently does not have such a glorious list of achievements to its credit as the Fruit and Fruit Technology Research Institute. However, it has already achieved much. True, it has not yet excelled in the field of cultivation but that is only because the institute is still so young. As regards the evaluation of cultivars this institute has already done a great deal. Eight cultivars have already been handed over to the KWV for further multiplication and I want to pay tribute to them for the great work they are doing.

Business suspended at 18h30 and resumed at 20h00.

Evening Sitting

Mr. Chairman, at the beginning of my speech earlier this afternoon I pointed out that the agriculturist and the entire agricultural industry were living under a dark cloud and that there was a strong possibility of a large percentage of farmers being forced to leave their farms because of economic pressures over the next few years. Some hon. members seemed to feel that I put it too strongly and perhaps that I exaggerated a little. In the debate so far, I have really not heard one single hon. member who, in terms of economic realities in the agricultural sector, could convince me that I was wrong. To tell you the truth, Sir, if one refers to previous debates—I do not want to quote from them now—it seems as though some members on the other side agree with me and made a serious appeal to the hon. the Minister a few weeks ago to go into this matter. Furthermore, I want to remind hon. members once again that I said that this situation, viz. that farmers would be forced to leave their farms, would occur unless systematic action was taken. It is that systematic action we on this side are expecting from the hon. the Minister on that side. I know that it is not easy, Sir, but something will have to be done. I shall leave it at that.

Furthermore, I want to refer to the situation in the meat industry once again, and mention a few important statistics. There have been references to the consumption of red meat and the consumption of white meat. I do not want to go back as far as 1930, but I merely want to use it as a point of departure. I want to remind hon. members of the fact that according to these statistics the consumption of red meat amounted to no less than 50,1 kg per capita in 1940-’41, compared to a figure of 41,4 kg in 1977. The latter figure includes the consumption of white meat as well as red meat. Just to be more accurate, I want to use the last figure again and quote the following: In 1976-’77 the figure for the consumption of red meat was 33,6 kg and the figure for white meat 6,8 kg. That is my information.

The problem that I now have to contend with is the following: While the per capita consumption of all kinds of meat in South Africa has decreased, we find that the costs of the producer for the transport, agency fees, abattoir fees, etc., per carcase have increased in a very short period of about five years from R9,94 to R41,75 in 1948. Is that figure correct, Mr. Chairman, or through you, the hon. the Minister? Actually I took that figure over from the hon. the Minister, but I was writing so fast that I am not sure whether I wrote the figure down correctly. But a little earlier the hon. the Minister referred to the cost of the slaughter of one carcass. This is the figure that I have, and I should like the hon. the Minister to correct me if I am wrong. In any case, although I might be wrong, the cost has still increased by a tremendous amount. I wonder to what extent this specific cost aspect of the production of red meat contributes to the low consumption of red meat in South Africa. Is it not simply a case of the consumer not being able to afford to eat meat. If that is the case …

The value of money has decreased.

If that is the case—and one must of course include inflation—I cannot agree with the hon. the Minister when he said, if I understood him correctly, that the white meat industry, in other words the broiler industry, has, for a number of years, prospered to such an extent that it now has to stand aside, so to speak, for the red meat industry. In other words, the maize price must in no way subsidize the white meat industry. In that respect I agree with the hon. the Minister, and I want to say so immediately. But if one considers the rise in fodder prices over the past two or three years, one notices that that rise was far beyond the increase in the maize price. Where do those increases come from? That is what I should like to know. Is there not perhaps a middle group which is exploiting the broiler industry by increasing the prices of fodder at an unnecessarily high rate? [Interjections.] The broiler industry does not produce its own fodder. In fact, maize comprises 60% to 70% of the content of the fodder for the broiler industry. That is according to my information. Somewhere between the two there is some exploitation and if that is the case, it must surely be investigated. I want to say that if the economy of South Africa is to develop at a normal rate and in a normal manner, we should expect the consumption of white meat to constitute more or less one third of the total meat consumption. That is the position in many developed countries and it seems as if it should stabilize at approximately that level. If I consider the present consumption as the white meat industry is still far below that level. For that reason I am perturbed by the thought that it might perhaps be the Government’s policy to suppress the white meat industry surreptiously and in a systematic way. That is the fear that I am expressing and I should like the hon. the Minister to reply to it. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, I do not understand the hon. member for Wynberg. He said just now that it was more or less 60% and then again he spoke of one-third. I do not think it makes much sense. But the fact I really want to bring to his notice is that he mentioned how the average marketing costs have risen. It is also interesting to note how the average yield increased during the period 1970 to 1978, that is to say the yield from carcasses and from offal and from hides and skins. He will note there that the average gross yield per animal increased from R108,29 to R211. In that respect therefore there was also a reasonable increase.

The hon. member for Pietermaritzburg South vented his spleen here because, according to him, the hon. the Minister and ourselves said nothing during the debate on the Railway budget. I just want to refer him to my speech in that debate as it appears in column 2524 when I said—

I also mentioned other items.

I want to confine myself to a matter which is of extreme importance to me and that is that farmers, particularly breeders of rams of various breeds of sheep suffer dreadful losses every year as a result of bladder stones in their rams. Over the years, many different reasons have been advanced for this. The various causes mentioned are, for example, too high a lime content in our water, extremely cold weather after shearing and insufficient exercise, and I can quote you numerous other examples. During the early 1950’s it was already very clear to me as a practising farmer and also as a ram breeder that as soon as rams were placed on a high maize intake there was trouble with bladder stones within a month. But when, under the same conditions, they were fed only dry lucerne hay instead of maize, no problems were experienced. However, I am pleased that there is now positive proof that excessive phosphorus is the main reason for the formation of bladder stones (or urine stones) which cause the death of many rams. The tragedy of this is that some of our best breeding stock has been lost in the past and is still being lost in that way. It has now been proved beyond all doubt that the amount of phosphorus required by sheep is much lower than was always officially assumed. Maize contains 0,27% of phosphorus and only 0,02% of calcium, whereas in lucerne the ratio is the opposite, namely 1,3% calcium and 0,2% phosphorus. A ration of mealie meal, lucerne meal and other types of grain therefore already contains a reasonable percentage of phosphorus so that the addition of phosphorus is not as essential as is generally assumed. It is therefore a mistake to believe that an extra quantity of phosphorus must be added and that as a result of that the rations will be more effective. Researchers are unanimous that the phosphorus needs of sheep are considerably lower than required by regulation No. 987 dated 15 June 1973 of the Department of Agricultural Technical Services in regard to the manufacture of animal feeds. The following requirements are stipulated in these regulations for sheep feed: Four different types of sheep feed are dealt with in these regulations, namely sheep finishing feed, ram, ewe and lamb feed, winter additive for sheep, and full-strength provender for sheep. There is essentially not a very great difference among these four different types of feed and so I want to confine myself to the feed for rams, ewes and lambs. The following requirements are stipulated: The maximum percentage of protein must be 13%, the maximum percentage of fibre, 9%, the maximum percentage of calcium, 1,5%, the minimum percentage of fat must be 2,5%, and the minimum phosphorus percentage, 0,6%. According to the results of various research projects in South Africa as well as overseas, sheep in contrast to oxen do not need much phosphorus. There is evidently a high measure of re-use of phosphorus through the saliva and the amount of phosphorus that is actually in gorged by the sheep does not represent all the phosphorus that is in its stomach but only a very small portion of it. This superabundance of phosphorus in the body is then evidently excreted by the animal in the urine where the bladder stones are formed.

During the early 1960’s it was found in the USA, and it was also conclusively proved, that high levels of phosphorus were the cause of bladder stones. In 1975, the National Academy of Sciences in the USA ascertained that the phosphorus needs of rams on a dry ration varied from between 0,16% and 0,19%; in other words, less than 0,2%. Researchers in South Africa, Britain, New Zealand and Australia came to the conclusion that the phosphorus needs of sheep were much lower than was generally thought previously and that sheep on good pastures showed no shortage of phosphorus at all. After 30% of the rams of a certain breeder had died as a result of bladder stones, an analysis of a sample of the ration that has been fed to the animals showed that the rations had contained 0,79% of phosphorus and 1,48% of calcium. Phosphorus and calcium are indispensable to each other because their intake and effect are interrelated in the body of the sheep. When the level of phosphorus is fairly high the ratio of calcium to phosphorus in the sheep’s ration must be at least two to one. Dr. Bath, a Government veterinary surgeon, is of the opinion that in such circumstances, it is even better if the ratio is four to one and that this can cause no harm. In the case of farmers who use rations in which phosphorus has been decreased and calcium increased so that the ratio of calcium to phosphorus is 4 to 1, or even 6 to 1, the problem of bladder stones is mainly obviated. The ratio between calcium and phosphorus must be increased in proportion to the increase of the phosphorus content of the rations in order to prevent the formation of bladder stones. The problem is, however, that when sheep are given artificial feed it is not always possible to decrease the phosphorus content to a safe level. I have already pointed out that maize contains 0,27% of phosphorus and only 0,02% of calcium. For that reason the calcium content of the feed rations must be increased considerably. It is interesting to note that a maximum percentage of 1,5% of calcium and a minimum percentage of 0,6% of phosphorus are stipulated in the regulations, although there is no justification for it. There is no limitation on the maximum level of phosphorus; in other words, it can even be 1% or more, while the maximum level of calcium is in fact limited. Farmers who mix their own rations can therefore make provision for this themselves. The problem is, however, that the content of the registered mixtures of feed companies is controlled by regulation, and farmers who formerly bought registered rations to round off their rams and whose rams become afflicted with bladder stones, are, to an increasing extent, requesting the feed companies to supply them with rations the calcium and phosphorus content of which has been modified. However, such rations cannot be bought under a registered label, and so I want to ask here tonight that these regulations be reviewed immediately because genetic, economic, and feeding problems can, to a great extent be overcome if the percentage of phosphorus in the rations is decreased sufficiently and if the ratio between calcium and phosphorus is rectified.

Mr. Chairman, I hope you will forgive me if I do not follow the previous speaker’s line of thought. However, I should like to react briefly to a few ideas mentioned here tonight, and I also want to express a few thought in connection with the dairy industry.

In the first place, I want to state very clearly that I think that on this side of the Committee there is no doubt that the producers in South Africa are experiencing a difficult time. It is definitely true that the farming community are responsible people and that they realize that they must act with responsibility in the times in which we live. Although I do not want to enlarge on this, I do want to say that in my view the main problem is of a two-fold nature. In the first place there are the production costs as compared with the prices realized, a matter which we have already discussed at length. In the second place there is the matter which I have already mentioned previously, namely the hazards of agriculture. While price is one aspect of this problem in regard to which relief may possibly be given, there is another matter which, in my view, is equally important, and that is that somehow or other we must find other ways to obtain insurance in respect of production costs incurred in the event of a crop failure because, in the light of present-day cost increases, it is simply impossible for farmers to bear that risk in the long term. I want to leave that in the hands of our hon. Ministers.

I want now to deal with the dairy industry, the importance of which is not always realized in South Africa. Apart from the fact that the dairy industry provides approximately 7% of the protein needs of this country, the total consumption of dairy products in South Africa represents R400 million a year. It is true that when we look at projections and estimates that have been made, on the basis of the figures available to us and according to current trends, by the end of this century— probably by the middle of the 1990s—we shall have to produce twice the present quantity of dairy products in order to be able to supply the needs of South Africa. That is quite apart from the fact that as our Black people continue to earn higher wages they will continue to consume more and more dairy products. It is interesting to note that the consumption of dairy products by the urban Black people is negligible—approximately 4 ounces of cheese a year. It is therefore obvious that when these people earn higher incomes, when they consume more and more of this more expensive food, the per capita consumption of dairy products will increase enormously.

If we look at the dairy industry as we know it, we find that there has been a gradual growth in both the production and consumption of dairy products. For practical reasons I want to mention butter and cheese here, all the conventional types of cheese we know, up to and including 1969-’70. We find, for example, that in 1959-’60, the production of butter amounted to 42 000 tons and that the consumption at that stage amounted to 46 000 tons. The consumption of cheese at that stage was 17 000 tons. During the next ten years, up to 1969-’70, the consumption of butter increased by 3% each year and the production more or less kept pace with that increased consumption. As far as cheese was concerned, we had an increase of approximately 6% a year in consumption, with the result that while in 1969-’70 we had a butter production of 48 000 tons and a butter consumption— and we must please remember this figure—of 54 000 tons, in the case of cheese, on the other hand, we had a production of 19 000 tons and a consumption of 21 000 tons. I do not want to discuss the merits of those matters but it is a historical fact that it was then that we had the yellowing of margarine. I want to state here in passing that the yellowing of margarine saved the consumer 30 cents on a kilogram of spreading fat. However, with the increase in price of skim milk powder, for example, it cost the consumer much more than that. You will realize, Mr. Chairman, that when there was no longer a demand for butter—and I shall give you the figures just now as far as consumption is concerned—the Dairy Board had to keep the production of butter at a low level by means of price manipulation. But meanwhile the price of milk had increased. Consequently, if the manufacturer buys a gallon of milk he gets so little for the fat in that milk that he has to obtain a much higher price for the proteins in that milk in order once again to recover what he paid for the gallon of milk.

Let us just look at the practical implications of this. As I have said, the consumption of butter during the period 1969-’70 was 54 000 tons. During the period up to and including 1977-’78, the consumption of butter declined to 17 000 tons. The argument I want to advance here tonight—for which the hon. the Minister has a great deal of sympathy but which one would like to be more generally known—is that the dairy industry did not simply have to cope with the ordinary problems of supply and demand and of fluctuations as a result of climatic conditions. The dairy industry was faced here with absolutely abnormal conditions in which the production of butter had to be decreased from 54 000 tons to 17 000 tons over a period of seven years. And there was not a single cow that produced milk without fat. It was essential to find means whereby the production could be adjusted to the consumption. What is more, the production of cheese had to be stimulated and increased at the same time because, during the same period, the consumption of cheese increased by approximately 6% a year, except during the past two years. These are interesting facts.

On the one hand the farmers had to be discouraged from producing butterfat but at the same time they had to be encouraged to produce milk. The result was that in our wisdom or otherwise, we had to keep the price of butterfat low and endeavour to increase the price of milk. The result was, as I have just said, that the manufacturer had to increase the price of protein foods such as skim milk powder, condensed milk and other similar standardized products, in order to recover what he had lost on the butterfat in the milk. My attitude in this regard is, therefore, that if a calculation is made in this regard it will be found that the producer has lost much more than he gained by the consumption of a cheap type of spreading fat.

But what happened to the producer? During the year 1969-’70 cream producers alone numbered 54 000. Those cream producers now number 18 000. The number of industrial milk producers has increased from 15 000 to 36 000. What is more, the production of those cream producers dropped by 40% per producer. I am merely mentioning these figures as a background. We now have the situation, in 1978, where the latest figures I obtained from one of the largest dairying companies in the country during this week indicate that its intake of industrial milk is at present 20% lower than during the corresponding period last year. The hon. the Minister will tell us that there is no longer any surplus whatsoever. The estimate in South Africa, as I said at the beginning, is that during the coming years we shall have to make provision for a higher consumption. We hope that will be the case.

I want to express my great appreciation here tonight for the fact that the hon. the Minister appointed a committee, a work group, to draw up a draft scheme for the establishment of a single board so that the entire dairy industry will fall under a single board and so that all artificial obstacles and all artificial stumbling-blocks can be removed and there can be a free flow of dairy products where there is a demand for them.

We are now faced with a few other problems. One of the speakers said this afternoon, when he spoke of Coloured and Black labour in the Western Cape, that the problem is that the Coloureds do not want to work over weekends. I do not know whether there are many population groups that want to work over weekends at all. The fact is therefore that mechanization will develop in the dairy industry and that with mechanization, bulk storage, tanks and refrigeration will come into use. Such development will have its advantages but will also result in economic obligations. For that reason I want to make a further appeal to our authorities and say that where we are now at the crossroads of the dairy industry, we must approach the problem of the dairy farmer sympathetically because he will have to find his niche. He has experienced difficult times. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member who has just resumed his seat, is quite obviously a person who knows the dairy industry backwards, and I would like to say that I appreciate the speech that he has just made because this is a matter of considerable importance in my own constituency. I want to say to the hon. member that I have seen the dairy industry in Natal retreat from where it used to be centred between Durban and Pietermaritzburg and the surroundings of Pietermaritzburg, right out into the vastness of East Griqualand and Underberg and Northern Natal from where milk is being transported by tanker today to feed Durban. In the old days it was never even thought of that fresh milk could be produced in those areas. This, however, is due to technological development and also to development in the agricultural industry. Those people close to Durban whom one would normally think would be able to produce milk and transport it over short distances have found that the dairy industry simply is not a paying venture and that any other sort of farming is more lucrative.

I have seen the whole thing simply disappear. One finds sugar cane or timber farming—indeed virtually anything but dairy farming—being practised in areas which are ideal for dairy farming. I agree with the hon. member. I think that the dairy industry today is in a considerable state of difficulty. In my constituency there are very large producers and the objectives seem to be getting bigger and bigger. Today there are people who are aiming at 2 000 gallons a day. That appears to be the point at which people are aiming. If one does not produce a thousand gallons a day, people say that one is hardly an economic unit any more under the conditions in which one has to produce in our area. But I hope to have a little more to say next week about the dairy industry.

Sir, I wish to refer to just one matter which the hon. the Minister raised when he referred to Malawi earlier in the debate. I am not quite sure—I hope I misunderstood him—but it appeared to me that the hon. the Minister said that Malawi was one of these countries, among others in Africa, which was unable to produce food.

No, that is not so. I spoke about surpluses.

Is that not so? We had members of Parliament from Malawi visiting us last year and my impression was that this was the one country in Africa which in fact exports food. They do export food and they are first class agriculturists. I wish that we could send some of our own people there to see how things are done there. I must say—let us be quite open about it—that the members of Parliament told us that this is achieved in one way only, and that is because the Life President says to the people: “You get out there and work!” And when they get out there and work, they produce food. They are told what to produce and how to produce it, and they do it. Whether that is something that could happen in our country, I do not know. I just want to say this: If we were to give Transkei to the Chinese, for instance, they would feed the whole of Africa quite easily! I think this is one of the problems that we face but which really has nothing much to do with this debate.

I want to return just briefly to the question of the abattoirs, because I have been concerned with this matter for a very long time, indeed, from the time I served in the Provincial Council in Natal, and I have mentioned this to the hon. the Minister before. There was always a hassle between the Durban City Council and the Provincial Council of Natal because Durban was governed by a special ordinance which allowed them only a certain percentage of profit over their capital investment, and beyond that the money had to go into a sinking fund which was used to replace facilities at the abattoirs and that kind of thing. When the question of the replacement of the Durban abattoir was mooted, as I remember the situation—the hon. the Minister can correct me if I happen to be wrong—the Durban people were prepared to build an abattoir provided certain concessions were made to them in terms of the special ordinance which governed them and they were given a greater margin of mark-up on the capital costs to which they were limited in terms of that ordinance. Sir, there was no doubt about it and we have known for years that the Durban abattoir had to be moved; the Railways told us so years ago. There was obviously an advantage to be gained from siting it at Cato Ridge between Pietermaritzburg and Durban. But I think the abattoir was conceived as one of the export abattoirs for a market which has just disappeared. As far as I can see there is no longer any question of our exporting meat today. There is a beef mountain in Europe which is the logical place to which we would export, and we find ourselves saddled today with an immense capital investment which I really honestly believe is placing such an onus and a burden on the farming community who are going to market stock there that they will find themselves in an impossible position. And I believe the hon. the Minister will have to take a decision to write off a considerable proportion of the capital cost connected with the abattoir in Durban, the abattoir in Johannesburg and elsewhere if necessary. Because, Sir, one cannot expect those costs to be recovered from the farming community by way of levies on the stock that are slaughtered there.

Or the consumer.

Or the consumer, quite right. I agree with the hon. member for Orange Grove. I think we will have to adopt an attitude—and I would recommend it to the hon. the Minister—that an abattoir renders a health service; it is something that has to be erected, it has to be controlled and it has to meet certain standards. But in the process of meeting those standards capital costs have escalated to such an extent that nobody ever visualized them reaching that figure. Sooner or later we shall have to take a step which is at least going to make slaughtering costs realistic. I hope to have something more to say about this next week when we continue this debate, especially on the question of what the Government’s share is in the factor of the cost input of the farming community. And I would ask the hon. the Minister to consider that matter. I do not expect him to give us an answer right here and now. Our problem is that we are running into a price ceiling. That is our whole problem with beef. We are running into a price ceiling and this applies to sheep and everything else too. I believe that we are in a situation where there is a downturn in the market. Obviously, we are having a hard time economically but I believe we have moved off the bottom and are moving ahead. I think things will improve, and I think people will be better able to afford meat at a higher price within a year or so from now. But we must face the situation today—as every hon. member here has said—that it is no good putting a floor price on beef unless there is a turnover which is going to allow the farmer to be able to cover his fixed overheads and to make something of a profit, and to be able to build up capital in the industry. I think this is the most serious thing of all, and hon. members have not dealt with it at any length at all. Without the farming community being able to replenish their capital from the proceeds of their industry there is no future for farming, and this has been the position over a number of years. Capital flowing into the farming sector has been forthcoming from people outside of farming, people in business who have made money in every walk of life except farming. There has been a continual turnover among the members of the farming community with new money coming in that had been made outside farming. But, Sir, without a built-in margin of profit, the farming industry simply cannot go on. Because of the rising cost of land people have got into trouble producing food. I have said for many years that the housewife in this country has eaten vegetables off the backs of the farmers who have gone broke producing those vegetables. That has happened time and again. How many farmers do we not know of who have produced cabbages, peas, beans— vegetables of every sort? They start off with the intention of malting a fortune, they plough the land and six months later when one asks them: “How did you do on that crop?”, their reply is: “We sold the lot and we did not even get back the price of the bag! By the time we railed it from the farm to the market it had cost us money to get it there.” The housewife in this country has been eating vegetables on that basis for a very long time, and I think that this represents a real problem. The formation of capital in the farming industry …

When did you start getting wise?

I have been wise a long time, quite a long time. Mr. Chairman, even if the price of mealies or beef is fixed today—not that it is fixed, but on the return that people get today—I do not think that we are in a situation to build up capital in our farming industry. And this puts a strain on the hon. the Minister, on the Department, on the Land Bank, on agricultural credit, On everybody, to provide capital at a figure which the farming community can absorb and make a profit on. That is our real problem today; it is a question of the provision of capital. Mr. Chairman, I think this is the real problem which the hon. the Minister faces. We also have other problems such as the question of the balance between drought and rain. Success in this country depends on rain. When we have good rains in this country we have the most marvellous farming country in the world, and everybody is happy. The hon. the Minister is happy and even we on this side of the House cannot come along and criticize him. But, Sir, I think the long-term problems of farming will eventually crystallize out at the capital that is going to have to be provided and now the hon. the Minister plans to generate it in the farming industry.

We must accept one thing now, and that is that the days of cheap food are past; they are finished. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, I agree with the hon. the Minister that the hon. member for Mooi River made a very fine speech. He made his customary positive contribution, and I think we all appreciate it. He speaks like a farmer and although he is no longer in the farming industry, he certainly has not lost his interest in his constituency or his love for the farming community.

However, I want to come back to the hon. member for Wynberg. If I may refer to his first speech of today again, and forget about the few negative aspects, I must congratulate him on the very fine contribution he made here. He said himself that this was the first Vote he was dealing with in his new capacity and there can be no doubt that he gave a good account of himself. We wish him more such positive contributions in this position. This is particularly the case if we consider his contribution against the background of the hon. member for Orange Grove who sits next to him and who usually succeeds in saying nothing contentious but yet doing it in such a caustic manner that it irritates everyone. In that respect, the hon. member for Wynberg did quite well.

However, I do want to refer to a few matters he dealt with in his second speech. In the first place, he asked whether meat had not perhaps become too expensive to the consumer and whether this was not the reason why the per capita consumption had declined. I cannot say that this is the case. Many factors have undoubtedly contributed to the fact that people—and especially the housewife—have gained the impression that meat is expensive. The hon. member for Kuruman referred very ably to one aspect this afternoon, namely what has happened in regard to sausage. But there are also other aspects that we must not lose sight of, namely press reports of particularly high prices realized and the resultant influence this has on the image that the housewife gets of the prices of agricultural products, especially the price of meat. I should like to mention one figure to the hon. member. It is derived from a publication in which prices in various capitals of the world are quoted.

Start off with New Zealand.

No, let us leave that for the moment; I shall begin with what I want to quote. These are UNO figures and I am sure we can accept them as being correct. The price of steak in Pretoria is R3,76 a kilogram and in London it is R7,46. How much does it cost in New Zealand?

[Inaudible.]

Mr. Chairman, he says it is cheaper, and for the sake of the consumers in New Zealand, I hope he is correct. In Paris, steak costs R8,04 a kilogram; in The Hague, R10,38; in Washington, R4,01 and in Bonn it costs R11,85. I repeat that in Pretoria it costs R3,76 a kilogram. Therefore, I cannot accept that meat is really too expensive in South Africa.

There is another aspect I want to bring to the notice of hon. members. There is a surplus of red meat at present. This is also instrumental in making people believe that the price of meat must be reduced at all costs. The hon. member for Orange Grove also said this. He wants to do away with the floor price so that the price can be as low as possible to the consumer. There is a problem with the marketing of red meat at present. We may still have problems in the immediate future but I foresee that over a longer period this will no longer be the case. I should like to make a quotation to hon. members from a speech by the hon. the Minister. It reads—

In spite of all the Jeremiads we hear, I expect that in future we shall still have to encourage the farmers to continue to produce red meat so that the housewives can be adequately provided for.

I also want to refer to the second speech of the hon. member for Wynberg in which he spoke of a dark cloud. I prefer to misunderstand the hon. member because I believe that every dark cloud has a silver lining. The farmers of the Swartland and the Ruens area have to sow their crops at the moment. The hon. member must realize that we look forward to the appearance of a dark cloud in the north-west. It is dry; the farmers must sow their crops, and in places, grazing for suckling ewes is so scarce that some farmers have already had to cut the throats of lambs to save the ewes. That is the situation at present.

This brings me to an aspect I want to bring to the notice of the committee, namely disasters in agriculture and the risks involved in—as the hon. member for Heilbron put it— the vastly increased production costs. We must have complete clarity in this regard. A restructuring is taking place in our agricultural industry. Not only are we mechanizing but there is also a second important change that is taking place, namely the use of larger machinery. We are also applying better techniques. This is true. It has been said on various occasions here today that the farmer is technologically equipped to shoulder the task of production. That is in fact the case. But as a result of the technological development and the changes that have taken place as a result of the increased price of fuel, etc.— for which I can quote numerous reasons—the farmer is also compelled to keep pace in other fields and this costs vast sums of money.

Let us consider the costs involved in the use of pesticides, for example, or the new methods for the application of fertilizer. There are many technological improvements that are absolutely essential for a consistently high production. The farmer is not compensated for this—as was rightly mentioned here this afternoon—to enable him to cope with those expenses. As a result, the farmer finds himself in a situation that makes it essential that consideration be given to taking certain steps, for example, the establishment of a compulsory insurance scheme in which the farmer himself must have an immense share. If the consumers—as represented in this committee—see the risks the farmer runs, they will also be prepared to make a contribution in order to support the insurance scheme and consequently to ensure that there will be food for the next day too.

Sir, I feel that we must set the ball rolling in some way or another. The best way in which this can be done, is, as is the custom of the hon. the Minister, to request the South African Agricultural Union to go into this matter. They must try to ascertain whether a scheme cannot be devised whereby at least the production costs can be guaranteed to the farmer, even if it has to be by way of a compulsory insurance scheme. I cannot add anything to that because it will definitely not be an easy scheme. However, I do feel that the farming community and farmers’ organizations must put their heads together. Perhaps we should go even further and ask the hon. the Minister whether he will not consider, in consultation with the hon. the Minister of Finance, appointing a commission to go into this aspect. I feel that the changes in the financing requirements of agriculture really warrant deep thought and positive action in this regard.

Mr. Chairman, I listened with interest to the hon. the Deputy Minister’s plea for the farmer to have his production costs underwritten. He suggested some sort of insurance scheme. He was absolutely certain that the consumer would go along with this and that if there was a good public relations exercise he felt certain that the consumer would underwrite the farmer and make his contribution towards this. But I think one has to guard against the temptation always to put farmers in a special situation in the community. Farmers are special and they are basic to the needs of a community, but there are many other industries. Farmers are proud people and I do not think that they need that sort of special treatment. There are many industries in South Africa today that would be very grateful indeed for a similar kind of insurance, for example, the mines, the building industry etc. They would all like guarantees that they would be able to cover the costs in this way. I do not believe that the farming community of South Africa has so lost its pride that it needs that sort of guarantee. I think their efficiency is their watchword and I think that they can come through without that sort of thing.

I would like to return to the question of the increase in the price of maize and its effect on other sectors of the agricultural industry.

I want to talk specifically about the dairy industry which is in a difficult situation at the moment. We know that we are faced with a probable price rise. The hon. member for Heilbron who comes from a great dairy farming centre has spoken about it, but I think the hon. the Minister should make known during this debate exactly what is going to happen as far as the dairy industry is concerned. We have reached the stage where prices are going to go up. They were in a very poor state before that and I should like to quote what Mr. Davids, chairman of the Milk Board had to say. According to The Citizen of 15th April he—

This is the situation that the dairy industry has found itself in. They have been operating at a loss for some time and they desperately need this price rise which inevitably is going to be passed on to the consumer. We are going to have a situation where the farmers are barely keeping up with cost increases and the consumer is once again going to be faced with another inflationary item in his food basket. Milk production has been in a very heavy loss situation and over the past two years the estimated production cost increases have been something like 35%. The price increase required has been estimated by various milk-producing members of organized agriculture throughout the country as being between 15% and 18%.

Firstly, I wish to make a statement concerning the difference between what the producer gets for his milk and what one pays for it over the counter. This is a subject that I have raised in years past and which we have discussed across the floor of the committee. I do believe it is unreasonable that we should still have a situation where the primary producer only gets paid about half of what the consumer pays for milk over the counter. Something is not correct in this situation and I believe that somewhere in the middle too much is being lost. A lot of it is due to marketing and we have argued in the past about the question of dairy products which in situations of surplus are sold at a higher price. I believe that the activities of the Dairy Board have gone a long way towards killing the demand for butter and cheese. It is going to need a tremendous amount of work before one can build up that market again. The butter market, for example, has had to face tremendous competition from margarine. I am glad to see that at last there has been some sort of fight back from the Dairy Board on the question of cholesterol. Margarine outsells butter now because of the myth that animal fats, notably butter, produce a tremendous amount of cholesterol. I am glad to see that medical opinion is beginning to revise its earlier prognosis and come to a more sensible conclusion, namely, that fat is fat and that there is nothing magical in eating margarine as opposed to butter. This is the sort of promotion operation that I would much prefer to have seen from the Dairy Board than this business of selling butter at a higher price because we were running into a surplus. The latest move of the Dairy Board is an interesting one in that table butter, the lower grade butter, has been dropped in price by something like 30 cents per kilogram to industrial users. So we are now in the situation where biscuit and ice-cream manufacturers and people such as that can buy table butter at a cheaper price than the ordinary consumer. I still have to see the prices of those commodities being lowered to the consumer as a result of this cheaper butter price. I still have not seen cheaper ice-cream coming on the market or cheaper biscuits. We are again faced with an inflationary item in that a dairy product is lowered in price and yet the consumer sees no benefit at all. I wonder at the correctness of the decision of the Dairy Board to do this. I know there has been confusion in the past among consumers as to the difference between choice butter and table butter, but this is a marketing problem. I believe that this saving in price, for the amount of table butter that is available, should have been passed on to the consumer direct and not through the industrial user. I think it well might stimulate demand if one could sell certain grades of butter at a cheaper price than the choice butter that we see regularly on the shelves of supermarkets.

If the Dairy Board has a surplus—I do not think the surplus is a very big one; in fact, I do not think it was even described as a surplus but as an accumulation, and it is a semantic trick to call it an accumulation rather than a surplus—and wants to get rid of it, the thing to do is to pass on the benefit to the consumer direct. It might well be old butter. There is a difference although it is not a large difference. [Interjections.] That hon. member who comes from a butter producing centre where NCD produces a lot of their butter, knows this full well. The devices that one has to indulge in purely and simply to sell butter I do not think are necessary. I think a sensible marketing policy would be to pass on the benefit to the consumer direct.

I think it is necessary for the hon. the Minister to tell us about the situation in regard to milk prices this evening. The maize price increase is obviously going to have a tremendous effect on dairy farmers. As the hon. member for Mooi River has said, the whole pattern of dairy farmer has changed recently. There are people in the outer areas producing the milk nowadays. As the price of made-up foodstuffs increases—and this is obviously bound up with the maize price increase—it becomes more and more difficult to make an economic operation of milk production closer to the major consumer areas, the urban areas. One has therefore to think of devices whereby milk can be produced in the outer areas and brought economically to the major distribution centres. Here again I want to raise the matter which I have discussed with the hon. the Minister before namely, long-life milk. I do not know whether I am correct, but I did hear that our first exports of long-life milk have been made to the Far East. I have put forward in the past—and I hold very strong views about it—that the future of milk production in South Africa can be assured by encouragement by the Government of the long-life milk industry. The machinery itself is very expensive, one knows that, but the actual process is no more expensive than pasteurization itself. When one is dealing with a large potential market which does not have refrigerators—I am talking about the Black market in South Africa, the markets in many of our urban areas such as Soweto, Guguletu and Langa—there is a tremendous benefit in long-life milk. I have not seen any major promotion by the Milk Board for long-life milk. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, in the limited time available to me, I should like to take a look at the dissemination of agricultural knowledge applicable on the farm level; in other words, how to streamline the process of the diffusion of agricultural knowledge. I should also like to point out what the present situation is, at least in Natal, and possibly also in the rest of the country.

Thirdly, I should like to refer to possibilities for future development by the department to streamline or enhance the diffusion of agricultural knowledge. I should also like to praise the department on the work that has been done through its programme planning committees, that is, if time will permit.

First of all, I should like to discuss the factual position in Natal. From 1950 up to the present the number of farmers has dwindled from about 10 000 to 6 000. What has happened in this process? One finds that farming has become more specialized and more sophisticated and naturally more scientific and, in addition, more capital has been employed in the farming situation. When one looks at the diffusion process one finds that as far back as 1950 there was a small number of farmers belonging to the first category of innovators. There was also a fairly small number of early adopters and after the early adopters we had what we called informal leaders. All these specific groups have their specific characteristics. After the informal leaders we had the late adopters and then the majority and then the non-adopters. What has actually happened is that in this period we have lost about one-third of our farmers because a lot of the farmers in the group of non-adopters and late adopters were eliminated in the efficiency process. That is the position, and this is why I often get so cross when people try to run down our farmers. I want to state categorically here that our farmers are farming at a very high level of production in Natal.

The point is today that the farmers in Natal feel that there is a need for their own extension service because in the process the departmental service—this is in regard to the dissemination of knowledge—has fallen down a little. We find that stock owners have appointed their own people, their own research people and their own pasture people. The NCD have appointed some of their own extension officers and economists. One also finds that the sugar farmers have their own people. Other farmers are getting this knowledge from institutions such as the Sub-tropical Research Institute. I personally feel that the actual extension officer in the field has not been used to the extent that he should have been used.

*Mr. Chairman, I know that the department has very capable people at its disposal, some of the most capable people there are, and I do not think it is fitting that I tell the department how they should plan ahead. I can only indicate a few directions, but I feel it is my duty to point out the situation in Natal and to demonstrate the high level on which the Natal farmers are farming. I feel one of the directions is perhaps that the professional officers could be formed into teams, according to ecological regions as at the research stations, for instance Griqualand East, Cedara, Dundee and Pietermaritzburg, and that these people could be brought together in such a way. I am saying this because we have reached the stage today where the computer has to be used. The computer is already being used to a great extent by the dairy farmers, at least on the level of the computer varying his rations, his concentrate rations, for him according to the variation of roughage. It is also used on a higher level. I feel that every farmer who so wishes, must be able to place his farm on a computer basis, and if an analysis of the soil should for instance have to be made, that information could be fed into that computer and be interpreted according to the types of soil which are to be found on the farm. That analysis could then be used there and we could obtain many facts. I think this is perhaps another possible direction. I have mentioned that groups could be brought together, and I think that where extension officers still have to remain in the field, they could remain there provided there are enough farmers practising one type of farming. That man could then establish economic study groups and develop into a specialist in farm management. I think that today the farmers in Natal need specialized guidance. Therefore I want to mention the fact that farming in Natal is on a high level and that more sophisticated services are required in the field of instruction in this process of diffusion.

†Mr. Chairman, I should just like to point out briefly on the subject of these study groups that I cannot help but praise the work the department has done. I think there is a lot of confusion because some people think that study groups are groups which only keep records and do record analysis as such. I notice here in the annual report for 1976-’77 that there are 405 study groups, 126 programme-planning committees and 251 soil conservation committees, with a membership of close on 6 000. I do not think people realize the service the study groups and the programme planning committees have rendered the farming community. When I started farming more than 20 years ago, having also worked in the department, our farmers did not have the scientific approach they have today. Without giving a lecture on programme planning I feel duty bound because of what has been said to point out what programme planning really is. This is the basis the study groups use, as do the soil conservation committees.

The first thing one does with programme planning is to make a survey to see what the situation is in a community or in regard to the production of a commodity. From that one makes an analysis of the situation and then one determines the problems. But what did we do? Twenty years ago we found that a lot of farmers said: These are our problems without determining the actual situation. Now, after having determined the problems we find the solutions or the possible solutions. Because of this process of programme planning committees and study groups, the scientific and sensible approach has been adopted. From the solutions they have set themselves objectives, definite objectives not just vague objectives where one says to oneself: I want to become rich one day. One says: In ten years’ time I want to earn R20 000 a year. That is a definite objective and then there is a definite plan of work. After one has done this, one can also reevaluate. So there are eight different steps. This is in line with a definition of “om slim te wees” … to be clever. Perhaps the definition of being clever is not to be in the Opposition, but that would not be a definition it would be a statement of fact. [Interjections.] I should like to point out, Mr. Chairman, that the definition of intelligence— that is the word I was looking for—intelligence …

Is being in the Opposition!

… is that it is a unit of ability and indicates a tendency towards a behaviourial pattern in man to determine goals and to develop ways and means and also to handle these means so as to achieve these goals.

This is what the programme-planning committees have done and this is what the department has done. I wonder, however, whether the department realizes how it has changed the thinking of farmers through programme-planning committees and study groups and through the soil conservation committees. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, I trust the hon. member for South Coast will pardon me if I do not follow up on what he has said. I think he stated his case very well. I cannot help thinking that tonight’s debate is probably one of the most quiet and most dispassionate agricultural debates I have ever heard. I cannot think what I must ascribe it to. On such an evening, one really misses the former member for Pietermaritzburg South; on such an evening, one really misses the former member for King William’s Town, because I can imagine, if the hon. members for Paarl and for Worcester had landed their main product before dinner as they did tonight, and those two hon. members had still been here, what fun there would have been in this House. Here we sit quietly and restfully! One could hardly imagine that we are conducting an agricultural debate.

Our agriculture has problems. We on this side admit that. We do not want to flinch from that. I think the bottlenecks in agriculture were thoroughly spelled out during the discussion of the private motion of the hon. member for Malmesbury. I am satisfied that all those points have thoroughly been brought to the notice of the hon. the Minister and the authorities, and that they will give the necessary attention to these matters. Many of those arguments were again raised here tonight, and I believe our Ministers are constantly giving attention to those matters. I just want to tell the Opposition tonight that they must not tell us that the number of our farmers is going to decrease by 30% within 10 years. I want to ask them to act responsibly; they must not grumble our farmers right out of the industry. They must be positive. They say that if the position in agriculture continues as it is at present, a further 30% of farmers will leave the industry in ten years. If they talk like that, then, surely, we are intimidating our young farmers. We must be positive about this matter, Sir; we must have a positive approach to our problems.

I do not want to put my head into a wasps’ nest tonight, but I do feel constrained to say something about the discord among our maize farmers. The hon. member for Mooi River referred to that, and the hon. the Minister replied, but I want to tell our maize farmers tonight that they must realize that they are not doing the industry a good service by continuing this dispute. I am being quite honest when I tell you that there is no material difference among the producers themselves. The producers themselves are not wrangling about certain matters in the industry. There is no difference in principle among the producers, but I have gained the impression—I hope I am wrong—that this wrangling is mainly concerned with personal matters. We all feel that the best possible service can only be rendered to the maize farmers if we all cooperate. Our Minister once again clearly spelled it out tonight. He said he wanted to take all the maize farmers with him. As I say, Sir, there are no substantial differences among the members. I have an idea that the disputes are mainly among the leaders of the various organizations. I want to make an urgent appeal to those leaders tonight. I want to endorse what the hon. the Minister said, namely that they must bury their hatchets of the past; they must get together. And if the angel Gabriel cannot bring them together, I make an appeal to the members of those organizations to get rid of those leaders and to appoint leaders who can indeed get together. That industry can no longer afford discord within its ranks. I really feel that this hair splitting among the members must be stopped. We join the hon. the Minister and the hon. member for Mooi River in requesting the members to get together; they must work out a plan to get together.

I now want to endorse what the hon. member for Graaff-Reinet said. He congratulated the departments, and the Department of Agricultural Technical Services and the Department of Agricultural Economic and Marketing, in particular, on the reports they published this year. The compilation of these reports is an immense task. There is an abundance of information, and if one has gone through these reports, one realizes what an immense task our agricultural departments are engaged in. I just want to refer to one little sentence in the annual report of the Department of Agricultural Technical Services. This appears under the heading “Weed Control”. I refer to the paragraph dealing with silver leaf bitter apple (satansbos). With all due respect, Sir, I do not think the department was referring to the Official Opposition here. Under the heading “Silver-leaf bitter apple”, they wrote as follows—

I want to add that this weed proliferates very rapidly. What is more, it is not confined to the districts mentioned in the report. The entire central Free State is almost completely infested. I am aware of the fact that during the past 10 to 20 years, the department has conducted experiments to develop an effective spray to combat this weed, but that they have not yet succeeded in producing an effective spray. I now want to request the department tonight, through the hon. the Minister, please to do everything in their power during the coming year to view this matter in a very serious light and to undertake special research in order to get an effective spray on the market for the combating of this rapidly-proliferating weed.

I have just told the Opposition that they must not grumble our young farmers right out of the industry. We are aware of the problems confronting the industry, and we need young men in agriculture, men who are prepared to face up to this challenge, men with the necessary vision, men with the necessary hope, but above all, men with the necessary faith. We need such men in agriculture. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, before the supper break the hon. member for Prieska referred to the meat industry and requested that the development of the market among the Black people receive more attention. This is one of the matters now being considered by the Meat Board, and it is part of the scheme to expedite the supply of meat. We realize that we are not reaching our potential market to a satisfactory extent.

The hon. member spoke about drought in his constituency. He lives in his constituency and is himself a major meat producer, and he has repeatedly brought the weather conditions in the Prieska constituency to my notice. Even if it were to rain now, it would be too late, because winter has already set in. But there are farmers who have felt for a long time that attention should be given to their problem. We are aware of the problems at Prieska, and if assistance has to be afforded, which is only available with limited funds at present, I shall discuss the matter with the hon. member later.

The hon. member for Aliwal was right when he referred to the livestock reduction scheme and said that we must protect our soil for the sake of our descendants. I thank the hon. member for this contribution.

†The hon. member for Orange Grove spoke about the decentralization of abattoirs. I told him during last year’s debate that we have big abattoirs in the consumption areas. It is very easy to have hindsight. However, it is not so easy to divert now to smaller abattoirs in the platteland while the skin industry, all the meat processing factories and the offal industry are concentrated in the big urban areas where these products can be consumed. He said that the Johannesburg City Council would be prepared to continue operating their abattoir if we guarantee them a certain turnover on the capital. Three weeks ago the City Council of Johannesburg paid me a visit and asked me whether we cannot take over the municipal market. They are not prepared, under today’s conditions with the shortage of capital, etc., to invest in these services. They would gladly hand over the municipal market. They are working on ½% return on the capital because it is a service not only to the farmer but especially to the housewife to have these facilities. It is not a profitable undertaking to have an abattoir or a municipal market.

He asked me how we are going to handle the oversupply of beef on the market. I can give him the assurance that it must be a temporary thing, because anything might happen to territories adjoining our country. We find that at the moment farmers are slaughtering cows and heifers because of financial difficulties. Eventually we will find that there is a shortage once more. There might be a drought. We have had favourable weather conditions for four years in succession and this cannot keep on for ever.

The hon. member also asked about the retailer/wholesaler working on borrowed money. In the Vaal Triangle 38 butchers closed down last year because of the small profit margin. They work on nearly 25% gross, but once they have paid the blockman, the electricity and the rent of the butchery and all the costs of refrigeration, etc., they are left with about 6% in the end, and that is not a favourable proposition.

*However, I shall again refer to the speech by the hon. member for Orange Grove later.

The hon. member for Maitland spoke about Simon van der Stel, who was a great patriot. I know a man who was 75 years old and who planted a small palm tree in a cold region of the Eastern Transvaal Highveld. This is a man who has faith in his country and in his grandchildren. This, Simon van der Stel undoubtedly was, too. He knew he would not be able to sit in the shade of the oak trees of Constantia. He knew he would not reap the fruit of the vine. I now want to tell the hon. member for Maitland—he is one of the members of the Constantia Control Board— and I want to thank the members of the Constantia Control Board, because they do not get a cent for this work, for endeavouring with so much enthusiasm to develop this gem of a heritage, so that we can speak of Constantia wines with pride.

The proposals by the hon. member to amend the Constantia Act so that there can be authority to rent land and to negotiate loans, will receive our attention. After I have discussed the matter with the Minister of Finance and with the Cabinet, we can consider whether the Act can be amended next year. I thank the hon. member for Maitland very much for his contribution.

The hon. member for Griqualand East requested that the head office of the Eastern Cape region be transferred from Queenstown to Döhne. Ever since he has become a member of Parliament, he has continually been nagging me about this matter, and I can tell him tonight that it has been approved. It will be moved. As soon as we have erected the buildings, we shall move it to Döhne.

He asked for an agricultural college at Döhne.

And the Speaker?

Yes, it is a pity, but in future the Speaker will be unopposed. The more agricultural colleges are asked for, the more I find that there is enthusiasm for agriculture. We approved of Nelspruit two years ago, but we simply do not have the money for buildings, although we have already purchased the land. I can only say that when funds are available one day and we can train more people in the Eastern Cape, of which he has given such a fine description, we shall give very sympathetic consideration to the establishment of an agricultural college there.

†The hon. member for Amanzimtoti spoke about production cost increases and said that it is unthinkable that agriculture could go bankrupt. It is unthinkable. [Interjections.] He told me that he had to leave but I would like to reply to him in his absence. He said as long as inflation exists the price of foodstuffs must rise. He is perfectly correct. If we look at the South African situation to see what happens in regard to the spending power of the people of this country, all of us here will be worried.

*The hon. member for Orange Grove and the hon. member for Wynberg spoke about the dark future of agriculture. I am now going to say something that is not very popular, but if this Government does not have the money to subsidize food under present-day conditions which border on depression, then there is only one solution, namely that if the farmer is to be kept in production, the consumer of food in this country must realize that he or she has a choice: Either keep on obtaining cheap food and ultimately be without food, or consider one’s expenditure and see whether one really has respect for food. In respect of meat—I am only speaking of a period of five years—we spent R719 million during 1972. Last year the amount was R1 415 million, which represented an increase of almost 100%. During 1972 we spent R266 million on milk and dairy products, and at present we are spending R551 million, which represents an increase of 107%. We spent R232 million on sugar, fruit preserves and jam, and at present we are spending R398 million, which amounts to an increase of 72% during the five year period mentioned. We spent R526 million on all the various types of grain, oats, barley, wheat and maize, and at present, we are spending R1 211 million, which represents an increase of 139%. As far as vegetables and fruit are concerned, there was an increase of 91%; we are now spending R936 million on those items.

There are two items that showed the greatest increase. In 1972, we spent R568 million on alcoholic beverages, and last year, the figure of spending was R1 375 million, which represents an increase of 139%. In respect of non-alcoholic beverages, that is to say Fanta, Coke and other sugar-water beverages, a total of R104 million was spent during 1972, and during last year, the amount was R282 million—an increase of 171%. We are spending R507 million on tobacco at present—an equally phenomenal increase.

Now I ask you, Sir. It is an unpopular thing to say that food prices will simply have to keep pace with increases in production costs. There will immediately be allegations that I show no sympathy for the consumer. But let us conduct this debate five years from now, after an appalling drought, and then hon. members will see how they pull me to pieces with questions like: “Why is there no food in this country? Why do housewives have to queue for food?” In order to prevent that, Sir, I prefer to take the rap now and I am now saying in advance that we shall simply have to keep pace with increases in production costs. Just a short while ago, hon. members passed remarks and referred to New Zealand among other things when the hon. Deputy Minister supplied the comparative figures for food in other countries.

I pointed out to Earl Butts, the former Minister of Food, who was discharged by the former President of the USA as a result of a very innocent little joke, that in the publication Foreign Agriculture he mentioned all the capitals of the world except Pretoria. Since then, details in connection with Pretoria have also appeared in this periodical every month, together with those of all the other capitals of the world. Hon. members can therefore compare the figures and also ascertain what food prices are in the various countries. One can also see there how many hours the White man or the Black man has to work to be able to buy a loaf of bread. The capitals are compared in alphabetical order, starting with Bonn in Germany and ending with Washington. The hon. member referred to New Zealand, and I therefore include Auckland here. A single item, meat, is cheaper in Auckland, but there is a specific reason for that. Hon. members must compare the prices of other types of food in Auckland with those in South Africa, however. And in one of the issues of this periodical we even read the following—“South Africa is the cheapest country to stay in in the world.”

But, Sir, what do we produce this food with? By means of imported tractors and diesel fuel. I am not quarrelling with the hon. Opposition, but at some stage or another we will have to tell the farmer in this country: “My dear friend, we are talking about efficiency, but your numbers declined from 125 000 to 78 000 within 20 years. The cream has remained, but unfortunately these numbers will decline even further.” Before the supper break I pointed out that we were working on averages. However, I do not want to dwell on that for too long, because I shall again have an opportunity of referring to that next Monday.

Unfortunately the hon. member for Worcester has to attend a Select Committee meeting now, but I like his approach. He lauds the good qualities of wine, but says at the same time that he does not like “drinking competitions”. That is as it should be because the Good Lord placed all these things at our disposal, but he admonished us to use them in moderation. I fully agree with the hon. member that when people want to use good table wine in “drinking competitions”, we must express the strongest disapproval. I take off my hat to a man who can take a drink in moderation, and who can smoke a cigarette or a pipe-full of Boxer tobacco, and who does not overdo these things. I therefore like the approach of the hon. member for Worcester.

The hon. member for Paarl does not expect me to mention this, but he himself referred to the work being done by the NIFFT and the NIOV. But he is one of the people who won a prize at the Bien Donné farmers’ day for personally having developed a Barlinka clone on his own farm—a striking example of Dr. Marais’ idea of farmers’ “hits”. This is the way we are going, and it is this type of people who visit those institutions and who co-operate with the department. It is not only our experts, but also the practical husbandman who makes a contribution towards increased production in an effort to keep production costs low.

The hon. member for Wynberg asked once again how we were going to keep the farmer in the industry. I have just explained this to him. But he also drew a comparison between the consumption of red meat and that of chicken, and said the feed price for broilers was increasing more rapidly than the price of white meat, and that we were quietly suppressing white meat. That is a strange insinuation, because it is not only the broiler farmer who has to pay more for maize. The dairy farmer of the Western Cape, and the pig farmer, also pay more. We lost a transport subsidy of R10 million on the inland transport of maize, and if the Western Cape farmer has a dairy farm or a pig farm, he has to forfeit that transport subsidy and pay the higher price for maize. The increase in the price of maize is therefore not directed at the broiler farmer only. In fact, I can supply the hon. member with figures if he wants to know what the increase in the production of broilers has been. For example, in 1970, we slaughted 59 million broilers in this country, in 1976, 137 million; and last year, more than 150 million. That is the equivalent of the weight of 10,5 million sheep, whereas in 1970, it was equivalent to the weight of 4,8 million sheep. It is also equivalent to 896 000 cattle carcases—I am referring to the weight of the broilers. I have no grudge against the broiler industry, Sir, but I merely inquired whether it was the right thing to do to subsidize maize with the object of feeding broilers. The per capita consumption of broilers has increased immensely, whereas that of beef has declined, and the hon. member cannot differ with me on that. Has that been to the benefit of the individual farmer who even markets directly from the land?

Mr. Chairman, may I please put a question? The fact that the broiler industry has increased so vastly during recent years, and has therefore supported the maize industry, is surely to the benefit of the maize industry?

Mr. Chairman, it is definitely to the benefit of the maize industry, but that is precisely what makes agriculture so interesting. One cannot divide the various aspects into air-tight compartments. Each must be regarded as a whole. I can say now that it was to the benefit of the maize industry that the broiler industry consumed such a huge quantity of maize, because 70% or 80% of the feed of the broiler industry consists of maize. But in the meantime, we forget about the cattle farmer, about the people who farm in remote areas, whom I have referred to. What happened in the broiler industry? I think the hon. member did not understand the interjection made by an hon. member on this side just now. The company that possesses the factory for concentrated feed is gradually taking over the broiler industry and the egg industry in this country. The three big companies, the Premier Milling Company, Stein Brothers (who have now been taken over by Tiger Oats), and Tongaat, already own 50% of the laying hens in this country, or it is at least well over 40%. But they also possess most of the fishmeal and other milling industries in this country.

I do not want to pretend that I am opposed to people producing inexpensive feed, but these firms are the type of people whose view is “what you lose on the swings you gain on the merry-go-round”. They are already so inter-connected. However, we must also devote attention to the individual producer, or else we might ultimately have a monopolistic condition.

I can just tell the hon. member for Smithfield that the regulations in connection with stock feeds have just been reviewed by the technical advisers and will be submitted for comment in the near future. If the hon. member is not here now, I can supply him with full details later on.

The hon. member for Heilbron referred to margarine, and said that in the past, 54 000 tons of butter had been consumed in this country, but that this figure had now declined to 17 000 tons. This is the old story all over again. But, can you believe it, the hon. member for Orange Grove again asked tonight how one could increase the price of an article when there was a surplus of the article in question. I have previously tried to spell that out in the House, but he still does not understand it. However, the hon. member raised an important point.

He will never understand. The prices of motor cars are constantly rising.

There is unemployment in the country, but in the meantime, salaries are increasing. I do not want to talk about those matters now; “let bygones be bygones”.

The hon. member spoke about having a single board of control; but in my view, this is self-evident. One cannot expect today that the fresh milk producer should be a passenger to the dairy farmer, or vice versa. Early one morning, the Deputy Minister and I, and a few departmental heads, drove to a dairy, and we noticed a cream separator there, and there was a man who distributed milk. He told us that he standardized butterfat at 3,4%, “because”, he said, “I am being encouraged to send milk with a high butterfat content”. I then asked him what he was doing with the cream, and his reply was that he was sending it to the Dairy Control Board. Sir, these matters do not work out that way. We can no longer afford the luxury of two separate boards of control. I read recently that one of the agricultural union congresses had suggested that we should postpone this matter for three years. It is not our intention to hurt the feelings of any farmer, whether he be a dairy farmer or a fresh milk producer, or to penalize him, but our object is to create a more streamlined marketing method.

†Mr. Chairman, the hon. member for Mooi River referred to Malawi. Whilst I was Deputy Minister of Agriculture their Minister of Agriculture told me that at that stage they had no silos and that they did not produce surpluses. Now, however, they have a new policy. Perhaps Malawi was a wrong example, but let us look at all the other African countries. It is not their attitude to produce a surplus; they only produce sufficient quantities to meet their needs. I think the hon. member knows this better than I do. Can the hon. member not speak the Zulu language?

The hon. member also said that we must write off certain capital costs on abattoirs. With all the criticism levelled at us for building an abattoir at Cato Ridge to supply Durban and Pietermaritzburg, a scheme which eventually will cost over R15 million, I can give the hon. member the assurance that within ten year’s time—I hope both of us will still be alive—he will say: “Is it not strange, to build the same scheme today will cost us over R90 million.” That is the way things are going, Sir. People are very pessimistic today and feel that these abattoirs are too expensive, but if one looks at the price of steel, cement, labour, etc., which is continually rising, these very same people will within a few years say: “Why did you plan such a small abattoir?” They might well say: “Why did you not build one for export purposes because of the mountain of beef available?”

*Mr. Chairman, one has to think of the population growth throughout the world in ten years’ time, of the children who must have meat to eat, of the protein shortages which might arise …

[Inaudible.]

Well, anything might happen.

†Nobody receives the Sunday Times on a Saturday. By the same token I cannot tell you beforehand which horses will win. But I am, however, optimistic about the erection of abattoirs. In regard to one point I fully agree with the hon. member, namely that the farmer is not in a situation to build up capital. Farmers who at this moment have a bumper crop, cannot afford to save money out of the yield of this crop to buy new tractors.

*It is one of our difficulties, Mr. Chairman, that the capital investment in agriculture has developed to such an extent that one has to go and borrow money from a commercial bank in order to sow a fresh crop.

And now I come to the hon. Deputy Minister’s idea of an insurance scheme for production costs, something the hon. member for Heibron also asked for. The only problem in that connection is that it costs the agricultural industry R1 800 million to get crops planted. When we talk about insurance for production costs, let us take maize as an example. A person might sow maize in a traditionally good maize area, and in that case, I would say that one can insure him against loss of production costs in the event of drought. But what does one do in the case of the person who sows maize in a marginal area, that is to say, the person who is actually taking a chance? And I say this with respect, Mr. Chairman. Take certain parts of the Vryburg district, for example, where one obtains a very good harvest in good rain years, but during a light drought, one does not even get one’s seed back. Suppose a farmer in that area also wanted to take out insurance. The hon. Deputy Minister is perfectly correct. Let us request the agricultural unions and study groups of all three parties represented here, to submit proposals. Let us thrash out the matter and see if we can find a method whereby we can ensure production costs, although I fear that the State will have to make a contribution, and it will have to be a substantial contribution if we want to ensure the R1 800 million. And what will the farmer’s contribution be?

The hon. member for Orange Grove is worried that we might request the consumer to make the contribution.

The Minister said so.

Yes, but we are now merely thinking out loud about this matter, and I can already see that it could cause difficulty.

†The hon. member for Orange Grove says that dairy farmers are producing at a loss and that farmers must get an increase, but then unfortunately consumers will have to pay more. Is that what the hon. member said?

No.

The hon. member wants to keep the farmers satisfied but he also wants to keep the consumers satisfied.

I just said something was wrong in the middle.

That is a good question. But, if a farmer, for instance, is getting a good price for fresh milk, say 16,5 cents per litre, the consumer in Sea Point pays 26 cents per litre delivered at her flat. Over the counter it costs a little more, it all depends whether the milk is in a carton, in a plastic bottle or in a returnable glass bottle. But at the flat a litre of milk is delivered at 26 cents. It is pasteurized, put into a container and transported, and all this entails extra cost. Mr. Chairman, I can offer the hon. member a licence to distribute milk in Sea Point as from tomorrow morning. I can give him a bicycle and an overall too. However, the price problem is at the moment under consideration. We are getting proposals from the Marketing Council, but I am afraid that we cannot increase the consumer price by more than 13% or at the utmost by 14%. For the past two years since the last increase took place, dairy farmers and fresh milk farmers have not received any increase. There was even a reduction in butterfat prices and a surplus of fresh milk. But there was a drop of 6% in consumption, and I am afraid that the lower income groups might again divert from fresh milk to skimmed powder milk.

*Really, Sir, King Solomon would have had a hard time solving all these problems, because if one rectifies one thing, one must ensure that one does not neglect the other things. Some of these farmers are definitely in trouble. When I think of the hon. member for Heilbron, the hon. member for Carletonville, and also the hon. member for Lydenburg and other hon. members who sit here—all of them people who serve on boards of control and co-operative societies, and who, like myself and the hon. Deputy Minister, know and understand the industry—I realize that they do not want to act irresponsibly. The hon. member for Orange Grove inquired about table butter, and wanted to know why this had not been made available to housewives. Table butter represents 2% of our butter supply, and some of this has already been in the cold-storage for a period of 18 months to two years.

†It is impossible to give these stocks to the retailers as not all of them will be able to cut the price by 30 cents. Some of them will take the 30 cents and put it in their pockets. The news will spread that the price of butter has come down by 30 cents, housewives will rush to buy butter which already is 18 months old. Only 2% of the butter we had in stock was table butter and the only way we could get rid of it within a week was by offering it to the industry, such as bakeries, etc. Now a long story is attached to it because certain chain stores are of the opinion that they can make a profit out of this by saying: “I am prepared to sell butter at a price which is 30 cents cheaper than the usual price, but they are not prepared to give it to me.” But they never mentioned that this table butter merely represents 2% of the total stock on hand.

*But that is how things go, Sir.

The hon. member for South Coast spoke about specialized instruction, programme planning, and study groups. He is perfectly correct; perhaps this has been neglected in his specific area. Dr. Verbeek, the Secretary for Agricultural Technical Services, is making notes about this, but seeing that the hon. member touched on this matter, I just want to raise one matter. We have an awful number of advisory committees for all the various commodities in the hon. member’s region. Perhaps I must have closer liaison with him to see what persons from his region must serve in these advisory committees. Some of these members devote all their time and attention to this work, however, and this is done free of charge, and I want to thank them for that tonight. Whether it is chickory, redbush tea, lucerne, lucerne seed or ostriches, does not matter. In every case, there is a study committee that specializes in and attends to these matters and does the work free of charge.

The hon. member for Winburg was the last speaker. He spoke about harmony among our farmers, and said they must co-operate. We are attending to the proliferation of silver-leaf bitter apple (satansbos). However, on Monday I shall enlarge further on harmony among our farmers and also reply to the other speeches. When I think of what lies ahead, however, and of the human material we have at our disposal in the agricultural industry; when I think of the researchers and the information officers and other officers in our service—all of them devoted people—I can hardly think that there can be discord among us. If I take into account the Ministry, the members of Parliament on all sides, and also the spirit in which this debate has been conducted, I can hardly imagine that there can be discord among us. If we here, a PFP, an NRP and an NP, can talk with so much harmony about agricultural matters, then in my view, the hon. member for Winburg is perfectly correct when he asks why there cannot be harmony among maize farmers. In fact, hon. members on both sides have said we must look into the production costs and the profit margin of the farmer. That is the disposition which has been displayed by everybody. If I were to tell you tonight that I received 692 telegrams from farmers’ associations, from district agricultural unions and from SAMSO to convey thanks for what we are trying to achieve for the maize industry, then I must agree with the hon. member for Winburg that we cannot afford being in two different camps. The sooner we can cover all our children with one blanket, the better. There are always a few who are naughty and who wet the bed, but they can still be part of the family. I thank the hon. member for his contribution.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. the Minister made a few statements but one statement with which I cannot agree is that he has nothing against the poultry industry. Those of us who are cattle farmers do have something against them. That is our competition and I do object. I do not agree with these people. The hon. the Minister also spoke about Boxer tobacco, but really, that has a horrible smell.

The hon. the Minister took me to task because I scolded the hon. the Minister of Transport just now. However, I want to point out and the hon. the Deputy Minister also stated this clearly, that we should take note of what the housewife thinks about this. The hon. the Deputy Minister spoke about the image the housewife gets about the price of meat. Maybe I put this situation a little too strongly this afternoon. However, I do feel very strongly about this matter. I think the hon. the Minister fell into the same trap. He scolded me about the fact that I said that the price of meat had not been increased over the past five years.

You should have said “over the past three years”.

I say over the past five years. I know what the hon. the Minister has done. There was an increase, but it was in the selling price of react and not in the price the producer receives for his meat. We disagree on that and I think that we should put it very clearly and precisely to the housewife what the farmer receives. The farmer did not get the price increase. The hon. the Minister takes the floor price or the selling price of meat after the Railway tariffs and all the other tariffs have been added. I have here with me a letter from the Mooi River Farmers’ Association which has sold more than 100 000 cattle over the past 10 years. In 1970 they received R102 per head of cattle, in 1971, R99, in 1972, R100, in 1973, R120 and in 1974 there was a big increase and they received R172, in 1975, R174, in 1976, R172, in 1977, R173, and this year almost the same price as last year. In other words, during the past five years there has hardly been any price increase as far as the producers are concerned. The large increase took place during the first five-year period. The total price increase over the whole period has only been 76%. That is why I scolded the hon. the Minister of Transport because he said that the producer price over that period had increased by 165%. The figures given by the department itself are also very clear in this regard. Figures the department gave me this morning show the average net profit and the marketing expenses of slaughter cattle in the nine controlled areas. According to these the price per head of cattle increased from 1971 from about R90 to R185, an increase of 106%. But over the past five years there has hardly been any increase. In 1974 the price was R188, in 1975, R178, in 1976, R186 and in 1977, R184, while it is still less this year. The price per slaughter ox, therefore, has decreased over the past five years. That is what we are complaining about. We are complaining about the fact that the price the farmer receives is lower. I think the hon. the Deputy Minister made it very clear that the housewife thinks that the farmer receives more but she does not realize that all the other costs have also increased. The farmers, however, do not receive more and I think the hon. the Minister should point out to the public that farmers are not better off then they were five years ago. This is something I feel very strongly about. Over the same period rail tariffs and transport costs have increased by 510% while abattoir fees have increased by 602%. [Interjections.] It is no good arguing with the hon. member for King William’s Town who does not know what he is talking about. He will do well to look at these figures.

The hon. member for Smithfield also scolded me, but unfortunately he is not present at the moment. He said that he also objected to the increased rail-age on livestock. When the hon. member for Mooi River moved a private member’s motion all the hon. members on the other side voted against it. I investigated the matter and ascertained that the hon. member for Smithfield did not vote against that motion. I wonder why not? The motion was moved to declare the increase in the rail-age on livestock null and void. All the NP members voted against it while we voted for it. I remember that the hon. the Minister felt very badly about the fact that he had to vote against that motion. He said: Make it R5 million, and I, too, will vote for it. The request was only for a reduction of R1 million.

I think hon. members on the other side should really be ashamed of themselves for having voted against such a motion. The question I want to put to the hon. the Minister is: What is he going to do about that? Ten years ago many farmers relied on the Railways being able to transport their cattle. They foresaw that rail-age and other costs would increase but they could also depend on it that the price of their product would increase as well. However, that did not happen while all the other costs increased. The small farmers and the marginal farmers are being ruined and I want to know how we are going to help them. This is, in fact, the question I wanted to put in my previous speech. That was a negative speech and I admit it.

However, I now want to make a positive speech, which will then be my second speech. This speech is about advertising and promotion costs, and I suppose the hon. the Minister expects me to speak about these matters. I put a question in this regard to the hon. the Minister and I thank his department for the detailed reply I received to that question.

†I know it is a very touchy subject and that the hon. the Minister does not believe in the advertising and promotion of agricultural products. But I wish to take him to task on this in a very friendly way. I have here a table showing the following particulars—

I would be glad if the hon. the Minister would study the table of figures, a copy of which I will let him and the committee have right away. This table contains the total production figures and the advertising and promotion costs of various control boards. They are the Karakul Board, the S.A. Wool Board, the Citrus Board, the Deciduous Fruit Board, the Dried Fruit Board, the Mohair Board, the Dairy Board, the Banana Board, the Milk Board and the Livestock and Meat Industries Control Board. These are statistics which I have obtained from the hon. the Minister’s department, and they point out very clearly that the Karakul Board spent 6% on advertising and promotion, but that the Milk Board and the Meat Board only spent 0,06%. These are very interesting statistics and in this regard I wish to put some positive suggestions to the hon. the Minister. Let us look at the first eight Boards which I have mentioned. Their total production do not even exceed the total production of the Meat Board, which is R598 million. But they spend R12 million on advertising, i.e. the first eight I have mentioned. The Meat Board only spends R350 000, though I have information that the Meat Board only spends R100 000. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, I rise to give the hon. member an opportunity of completing his speech.

I thank the hon. member, Mr. Chairman. I greatly appreciate his gesture.

Let us look now at the Karakul Board. They spend one hundred times the amount spent by either the Meat Board or the Milk Board. Their sales account for only R34 million, but they spend R2 million on promotion. Now let us take a look at the Wool Board, which was faced with a very serious situation. They had to compete with the rayons, the nylons and the polyesters, and they did a wonderful job, but they are spending R4,6 million per year on promotion. They had to compete and they came out on top. The hon. the Minister himself referred to this this afternoon. They went to see these people and they all worked together, and they found their market again. We are losing our market in milk and in meat, and we have to hit back, we have to promote. The Wool Board have a symbol which they have built up, a symbol of success. The Wool Board have a symbol and it is a success story which we might well emulate. The Citrus Board has done exactly the same thing. They spend forty times what the Milk Board or the Meat Board spends. Their achievements in marketing are remarkable. Remember, they too are competing with Coca-Cola; they are competing in the cool drink industry, they are competing against the Milk Board. But they spent forty times what the Milk Board spends. The figure for advertising for the Mohair Board is R220 000, which is twice as much as the Milk Board spends, and the Milk Board sells R175 million worth of milk. And what does the Mohair Board sell? Only R27 million worth of products. It is ridiculous, but it is true. The Dried Fruit Board spends an identical amount to sell R9 million worth of dried fruit as the Milk Board spends on selling R175 million worth of milk.

Here are my positive suggestions which I would like to put forward. Both the Milk and the Meat Boards need to use 1% of their turnover, which would mean in the milk industry R2,6 million. Here I am referring to the Milk Board and the Dairy Board combined. I can mention ten things they can do. I think the hon. member for Heilbron—I am sorry to see he is not in the House—came up with some very concrete ideas about how to sell milk. We need to concentrate on the schools. Firstly, we should sell it as a health food and a cool drink. We need to appoint a public relations officer. What do we have in milk? It is a good food, Sir, it is a cool drink. It is not a luxury; it is something that the people need.

Take soda water. What has soda water got? Are we getting that across to the public? It is exactly the same price as milk, and it is water and CO2. Look how easy it is to produce a litre of soda water and it costs 28 cents for a litre. What does the farmer spend to produce a litre of milk? We need to be aggressive, Sir, in marketing. Maybe Eschel Rhoodie will be out of a job tomorrow and he can get one here.

Look at margarine; what does it contain? It contains vegetable oil, salt, skim milk, powdered sugar, emulsified preservatives, benzoic acid, starch, flavouring agents, colourants and vitamins.

*That is what these things contain, Sir. It is not a wonderful product and I think we can beat them. The milk people should concentrate on that.

†Let us take the amount that should be spent on promoting meat: 1%, and this represents R6 million a year. That is what one should spend, and remember, only the fancy cuts are presently taken into account for promotion purposes. Let us concentrate on what an hon. member said here previously. Let us go for the sausage and the boerewors and that sort of meat. That is 50% of the animal. The fancy cuts comprise 25% and the other 25% is bone and fat. Let us establish some guide-lines for the inspection and grading of all these sausages. Maybe we can have a five-star hamburger system. We can negotiate with the Hotel Board to sell five-star hamburgers. These suggestions could work, Sir. We need to create new markets; we need to assist; we need to advise and build new good eating houses where we can sell meat.

We are going to let the Milk Board spend R250 000 on television advertising. You are now discussing what we agreed to only last week.

I am absolutely thrilled to hear that, Sir. There are a few other points. We need to educate and train the housewives and we have to educate the Bantu as to how to eat the meat, how to prepare it and how to prepare their other food. We must prepare some pamphlets and show them how they can stretch their budgets.

I have one further point. Counter the sensationalism when it is reported in the newspapers that the price of meat is up again. Every Christmas we read in the press: “Meat up again.” It is not up again; it is the same price as it is every Christmas.

My Whip is making signs at me, so I shall conclude on that note, Sir.

Mr. Chairman, the hon. member who has just resumed his seat will excuse me if I do not follow him. My time is very limited and I should like to say a few things before my opportunity to speak in this agricultural debate has passed by.

Mr. Chairman, I want to come back to the meat industry and speak specifically about a few recommendations made by the Marketing Council. Firstly, as regards the number of control points, the Marketing Council recommended that the control points should be decreased to four, namely Cato Ridge, City Deep, Port Elizabeth and Cape Town. I have doubts about this recommendation and I shall tell you why. If, for instance, in the case of the abattoit at City Deep which cost a tremendous amount of money, one removes the control in the outlying areas of the Rand complex, then one is in danger of butchers simply going to Pretoria or Krugersdorp in order to buy or to have the meat that they need slaughtered there where there is no control. This may bring about an undermining of the abattoirs in Johannesburg which, as I have said, cost a great deal of money. This is the reservation that I have. Now I also want to be positive. I should say that if the hon. the Minister were to consider implementing this recommendation, it would be logical to choose an area like Kimberley or East London where there are no abattoirs in the immediate vicinity where butchers can buy meat and therefore undermine the abattoir. I think it will be a good thing to test the recommendation there in order to see how it is going to work. I think it will be very dangerous to do away with all control summarily at the beginning as regards these areas. I want to say at once that the hon. the Minister said expressly that he will do so in consultation with the Meat Board and will do so very gradually.

The second matter to which I should like to refer very briefly concerns the restricting registration rights of the Meat Board. We have already heard a great deal today about where one can get sausage and where one cannot get it. The hon. member for Kuruman spoke about the boerewors which people have to keep in stock, etc. This is one matter with which I agree and I am not the only one who agrees that the National Woolgrowers Association of the Cape have unanimously accepted this recommendation viz. that restricting registration rights should be done away with entirely. I think that if there is one thing which has held back the industry as a whole it is these powers which the Meat Board has to restrict the establishment of factories, abattoirs, etc. I am absolutely convinced that if these powers are done away with and the economy can play its role in this regard, we will immediately have a larger turnover of red meat. The idea was that if one applied protection and did not have overtrading in the industry, one would inevitably have a cheaper industry. I maintain, however, that as a result of protection, the uneconomic and the poorer elements could also remain in the industry, and I feel that this has been the drawback in this whole system. This was the finding of the Marketing Commission too. Mr. Chairman, I leave the meat report at that.

I want to come back to the fine things that have been said about the wool industry here today, of which I am proud. I thank hon. members for the fine words that have been said here.

The hon. member for Orange Grove, however, says that there is stability as a result of the fact that there are good prices at the moment. I want to ask him, however, why there are good prices in spite of the fact that we are experiencing probably the strongest competition that there is in any agricultural industry. The wool industry has travelled a difficult path but I want to ascribe its success to one basic fact, viz. that we have only one seller today. Our bargaining power has increased, there is one man who decides how and when to sell, and I feel the success of the wool industry lies in this. Furthermore, and perhaps this is an even stronger reason, there is the fact that we can compete with Australia, which is the largest producer of wool in the world, in order to establish a world floor price for wool. I do not like to use the expression “floor price”; let me rather say reserve price. I think this was one of the biggest steps ever taken in the history of the wool industry. That is where our success lies. Furthermore, I think that the fact that the Wool Boards—and now I am not only referring to the South African Wool Board but the boards of Australia, New Zealand and Uruguay as well—undertook to finance an international organization, the I.W.S., that does research and advertising in the international sphere and in this way stimulates wool consumption particularly in order to combat the competition of artificial fibres, is another key to the success of the wool industry. It is said that good marketing means that one must be able to offer the right product in the right form at the right price in the right place. And this is precisely what the wool industry is doing. This reminds me of the man who came from America to visit South Africa. He met a young girl here whom he became very fond of. When his former girlfriend in America wrote to him and asked: “What does she have that I do not have?” he replied to her: “Nothing, except that she has it here.” That is precisely what happens in the wool industry.

Furthermore, I am proud to say that the wool industry at the moment has about R67 million in its stabilization fund which wool farmers have collected by putting their hands into their own pockets. I am proud to be able to say this because I want to tell you that the success of the industry lies in the fact that one knows one’s board is not afraid to act because it knows that there is a stabilization fund which it can fall back on if it should be necessary to do so. That is what the success of this industry can be ascribed to.

In the last few minutes at my disposal I should like to speak about a fine industry which has not yet been discussed in this Committee. I want to speak about the mohair industry. This is an industry which started in the Eastern Cape. Goats were imported from Turkey and the industry was established in the Eastern Cape. It is produced in the area from Uniondale in the west to Adelaide and Fort Beaufort in the east, and from Uitenhage in the south to Murraysburg and Middelburg in the north. It is restricted to this area as a result of climatic conditions. Unfortunately, it cannot be further expanded. Other producers in the world are Turkey and Texas, where, in Texas in particular, production is dropping drastically. According to my information, Turkey delivers her entire production to Russia. In the 1974-’75 season the average price for mohair was 223 cents per kilogram. In 1975-’76 it was 590 cents per kilogram. In 1976-’77 it was 673 cents per kilogram, with a total income at that stage of R27 055 000 and a production of 4,3 million kilograms.

Mr. Chairman, the anticipated average price for 1977-’78 will be in the vicinity of 800 cents per kilogram. According to the last auction the average price for mohair at the moment is more than 1 000 cents per kilogram. Early in the season kid mohair fetched R17,52 per kilogram at the auction. All indications point to production still rising, but unfortunately, as I have already said, production is limited to a specific area. Once again I want to pay tribute tonight to the Department of Agricultural Technical Services for the excellent research they do in connection with the mohair industry which also has a tremendously stimulating effect on that area. This holds good for increasing production not only on the vertical scale but also on the horizontal scale where one can effect a higher yield per animal.

The best thing of all is that the Mohair Board consists of only four members. I think this speaks volumes for their efficiency. I myself am a mohair producer and I am grateful for it today. It is the one agricultural industry that is doing well at the moment. In fact, I think that they are in the pound seats. Sir, I am grateful that I have been able to say something about this fine industry. [Time expired.]

Mr. Chairman, the atmosphere in this Committee is so calm this evening that I feel I should associate myself with it. As one of the representatives of the 13 constituencies in Pretoria, I believe that it behoves Pretoria at times to make its voice heard too when it comes to agricultural affairs.

Sir, the hon. Whip refused me an opportunity to speak a few times. I believe that he did this after consultation with certain people because of the danger that I normally speak on behalf of the consumers, danger which, of course, exists to a large extent this evening as well. However, I want to put the hon. the Minister and the hon. the Deputy Minister at their ease at once. I do not intend speaking about the consumers this evening. Nor do I intend speaking about the maize price, which, in my opinion, is too high.

Sir, you will understand that I have a number of small farmers in my area who farm with pigs, poultry, etc. They are farmers! If you do not want to believe me, Sir, ask the hon. the Minister. He says I am the man for the small farmer. If I return to my constituency and tell the voters that I spoke on behalf of the small farmer, the pig farmer will ask me straightaway what I said about the maize price. Sir, I do not want to tell you what the poultry farmer is going to have to say. But I shall leave it at that for the moment. Depending on the hon. the Minister’s reply to the representations I want to make to him this evening, I shall try and reserve another opportunity to speak so that I shall be able to come back to the small farmer. I am speaking of three kinds of small farmers. There is the pig farmer and the poultry farmer. Then I also have another kind of farmer in my area. [Interjections.] No, the hon. the Minister calls it a factory. This is the tunnel farmer; the people who farm under plastic. Sir, you will not believe me. Do you know how much vegetables those people produce? However, I shall leave the matter at that for the moment.

I feel a need this evening to thank the hon. the Minister and the Secretary for Agricultural Technical Services most sincerely for the tour of the Western Cape which they arranged for us a time ago. We had the opportunity to look at the agricultural research which is being done in the winter rainfall area. I recall that I saw practical research being conducted into the cultivation of fruit and the improvement of plants. Plant improvement concerns not only the cultivation of new parent material for grafting new trees and vines, but also pioneer work in combating viruses. However, I do not want to deal with viticulture now, and I shall leave it at that for the moment. I may come back to it at a later stage. Since I am a Transvaler, hon. members probably know more about it than I do. But, Sir, there is something which bothers me, and I should like to bring it to the attention of the hon. the Minister.

Mr. Chairman, I do not think we ought to take the extermination of viruses to the lengths illustrated to us by that hon. expert. He said that when they had finished with the virus in South Africa, the De Dooms area would no longer give us those beautiful shades of colour of the Barlinka vines in autumn. Sir, I am afraid, because once they have eradicated all this, all the vines turn yellow after the leaves have dropped. Fruit is affected by this.

Sir, can you imagine a white orange? Can you imagine a housewife going to the market and not being able to see the difference between a bunch of turnips and a bunch of beetroot, all because we have killed all the viruses?

Sir, I want to tell the hon. the Minister in all seriousness that if there is one thing which struck all of us about the knowledgeable people and the experts involved in this research, then it is their tremendous dedication. They spoke about a wonderful thing, viz. the establishment of a vinotheque. I made inquiries and I think this is a library of wine. Sir, can you imagine one having 60 000 dozen wines in a library where everything has been computerized so that, if one wants to ascertain whether there is a 1969 Stein by Jan Boland Coetzee, one merely presses a button. Then one gets the shelf number and room number, the horizontal and vertical line where that bottle is to be found. I think it is fitting for us in South Africa, as a leading viticultural country, to take the lead in this regard as well as it may mean a great deal to us abroad.

Sir, I am very pleased about the fact that the results and application of this intensive research, of which Dr. Burger and others told us, are transmitted directly to the farmers in the vicinity. I believe that the results of research should not only be used to obtain doctorates or to be exhibited at symposiums and congresses. Such results should be transmitted directly to the farmers in the winter rainfall area. I want to congratulate the hon. the Minister and his department on this.

In my constituency there are two irrigation schemes, viz. the Bon Accord and the Pienaar’s River Schemes. There are not many hon. members who are aware of the fact that I probably have more farmers in my constituency than most of them have. However, those farmers have smaller farms. I am speaking of the small farmers. But, Sir, I also have a fine organization there, viz. the Roodeplaat Research Scheme, where excellent research work is being done. However, I do not want to speak about that this evening but about the Bon Accord scheme.

The hon. the Minister is aware of the fact that approximately six years ago there was an outbreak of one of the most dreaded type of eel-worm in South Africa, viz. the golden eelworm. I can tell hon. members this evening that it is not a pretty sight or pleasant experience to see how 80 or more farmers have to plough under their vegetable crop whilst an unpleasant smell hangs in the air for weeks. That farmer is remunerated only for the seed and labour put in by him. I am not blaming anyone. All I want to say is that these people in the Bonn Accord scheme have been broken financially. We must accept that these people were in quarantine for a year or two and were unable to cultivate their ordinary crops. We must accept that 60% of them are still ruined financially today, four years later. Most of them had to go and look for a livelihood in the city, leaving their good irrigation land to the few Bantu whom they retained. Their sons, who would normally have been on the farms, had to go and look for a livelihood in the city as well. I want to ask the hon. the Minister whether it is not possible, when such a catastrophe hits an agricultural area, even though it is a small one, for the Department of Agricultural Technical Services to use its experts to assist the victims? I want to repeat that I am not blaming anyone. We have not had a great deal of experience of the golden eel-worm in South Africa.

Mr. Chairman, I move—

Agreed to.

The Committee adjourned at 22h26.