HC Deb 24 January 1949 vol 460 cc79-80W
Mr. G. Jeger

asked the Minister of Agriculture if it is intended to make any change in the prices of animal feedingstuffs in the near future.

Mr. T. Williams

Yes. The prices of animal feedingstuffs (except home-grown grains, both raw and processed) have been stabilised since September, 1940, and at present are considerably below world prices. The Government have now decided that it would be desirable to raise prices substantially to a new level roughly equivalent to the existing prices of home-grown cereals. The opportunity will be taken to correct various anomalies which have grown up in the relative prices of different feedingstuffs.

One of the dominant features of our Agricultural Expansion Programme is increased self-sufficiency in the feeding of animals. As I have said on various occasions there is no practical possibility of a resumption of heavy imports of feedingstuffs from abroad on the pre-war scale, and farmers must therefore rely more and more on home-grown feeding-stuffs, more particularly grass, whether as grazing, hay, silage or dried grass. The artificially low prices at which farmers have been able to purchase feedingstuffs have led some to undervalue grass, and one of the main objects of adjusting the prices of rationed feeding-stuffs is to bring them into a proper relationship with the costs of production of home-grown fodder and to impress on farmers the importance and value of grass and other feedingstuffs of their own growing.

The amounts of the advances in the prices of different feedingstuffs and the date on which they are to become operative will be announced in due course. The advances will apply to all the main animal feedingstuffs including amongst others maize, barley, oats, wheat food, oil cake, rice bran, fish meal, meat and bone meal, molasses, dried sugar beet pulp, and concentrated kitchen waste ("Tottenham Pudding").

Consequential adjustments of the prices to be paid to farmers for livestock, and livestock products such as milk, wool and eggs, will be discussed between the Agricultural Departments and the Farmers' Unions of the United Kingdom at the annual Price Review which is to take place next month.