Poor Copra
p. 25 · Read in the full issue
Brings High Price Fiji Urged to Improve Quality
A COMMITTEE will be set up in Fiji to investigate the desirability of improving the quality of copra in the Colony and to inquire into condi tions in the industry generally.
The motion was put to Legislative Council in December by Mr. W. G. John son, who said that of all copra produced in the Colony between 1942 and 1944 the percentage of first-grade had fallen from 35 per cent. In the first-mentioned year to 19 per cent, in the last months of 1944.
In his belief, there had been a steady deterioration month by month through out 1944 and he considered that this was associated with the rise in the price of copra.
The extra £1 brought by the first-grade product had meant much more when the price was £5/10/- per ton, than the £l/10/- difference between the grades meant to-day when copra brought big prices.
With to-day’s great demand, copra that was almost rubbish still brought a high price; therefore, planters did not try for high quality. But a day of reckoning would come. In the mid-thirties, it should be remembered, high quality copra remained in demand, but poor-grade stuff was not wanted.
Opposition to the plan to improve copra could be expected from some plant ers—the argument being that the' extra effort necessary would be uneconomical.
But to show what could be done, Mr.
Johnson quoted the case of one Lau plantation managed by a native Fijian.
Seventy-eight per cent, of the copra produced there between May, 1943, and
September, 1944, was classified first grade.
In Mr. Johnson’s opinion, the future of copra lies mainly in food production.
For this, only a high quality product is used; the extra expense makes the pr cessing of lower grades uneconomical.
THE motion was seconded by Mr. A. A.
Ragg, and supported by Mr. H. B.
Gibson. Mr. Gibson, however, said that he was opposed to copra grading altogether; that it had failed to achieve the results for which it was intended. No matter how much care went into produc tion, he claimed, one could not be sure of turning out a first-grade product. When copra, in spite of planters’ best' efforts, was classified as second-grade, then the planters decided that the money and effort could have been better employed in other directions.