Australia May Fill
pp. 71-73 · Read in the full issue
[?]Oops Bring
[?]Outage
Australia May Fill [?]ji's Rice Gap
1 is an ill-hurricane that does not blow someone some good— even when it is only a near-miss ricane. Beneficiaries of the re t floods, torrential rains and pical depressions in Fiji could the Australian rice industry. 7ith this in view, Mr. E. R. dham, of the Rice Growers’ Co jrative, millers of 70 per cent, of W Irrigation Area-produced rice, well as a co-operative society of wers, left Sydney for Fiji late rch. 0 reliable estimate of the flood lage done to local rice crops is available from Fiji, but specu -1 in rice stocks was already ent in the Colony by mid-March. ;e rises from lOd and 1/- per nd to 1/6 per pound followed second flood period earlier in month. Subsequently the Dnial Secretary presided over a ting of representatives of the firms. ormally, Fiji is almost self icient in rice. In 1955, 579 tons e imported—including 124 tons a Australia, 321 tons from ia and 58 tons from Thailand.
There is a local prejudice against Australian rice—it is alleged to be softer when cooked than Indian rice and without the same “polish.”
On this subject PlM’s Suva corre spondent has this to say: “Australian rice can be landed in Suva at about the same price as pre-flood Fiji rice.
The difference in quality can easily be borne.” The italics are ours as these sentiments are indicative of the different kind of market that Australian growers will have to cater for in Fiji.
Most of Australia’s export rice goes to the SW Pacific as native rations and, in so far as Papua-New Guinea is concerned, the quality and variety is dictated by the P-NG Health Department, the arbiter of native labour rations. Irrespective of what the natives might think about it, the Health Department says that unpolished or vitamin enriched rice is good for them, and so that is what they get.
The reverse is the case in Fiji.
Fijians are not rice eaters—it is the Indians who * are the rice con noisseurs and the rice consumers in that country, and if they prefer it highly polished and white and with out vitamins there is no one to say them nay.
Role Of Australia In
Pacific Rice Market
AUSTRALIAN rice production in creased enormously during the war and post-war years, when because of war and post-war Asian
political troubles the Commonwealth was the only source of rice for most of the Pacific. For a decade no rice was available for home con sumption in Australia —all of it went overseas, most of it to feed Pacific Islanders. In this way the rice in dustry contributed not a little to the war and post-war effort.
But the industry later was re warded by being granted a monopoly of the rice market in the large Territory of Papua-New Guinea, which before the war had bought its rice on the open market, most of it from Saigon.
For a number of years no one thought anything about this monopoly—there was a world rice famine, anyhow, and there was no rice available, cheaper, anywhere.
And because of the rice famine, world rice prices soared and Aus tralian rice prices soared with them, up to around £lOO per ton.
The Australian prices having soared, stayed there and it was not until late 1954 when Islands merchants in Sydney tried to ship Saigon rice to the Territory that Territorians learned that Eastern rice was back on the market at a price considerably below that of Australian rice.
Most P-NG residents discovered, also for the first time, that Eastern
rice was a “prohibited import” and that Australia had the rice market monopoly. A lot of these people went on record as being “shocked” at this situation and some uncom
plimentary things were said abo the Australian rice industry gene ally.
But P-NG laws are made in Caf berra and the Territory resident h
imp them, so it seemed that the tralian rice industry must be tutted to come out victorious in little preliminary brush. fis position held until April, 1955, n the price of Australian rice £AB3 per ton F. 0.8. Sydney for la and New Guinea, and £A9O ton for other Pacific Islands; when Eastern rice was be n £ASO and £A6O per ton. the middle of that month two ?s happened: Dr. John Gunther, Director of th in P-NG, said that “the P-NG imer cannot be expected to sub e the Australian rice industry longer.” And The P-NG Administration an iced that they would, from 1, lift the embargo on rice * than Australian. e result is now ancient history ween mid-April and June 1, Australian Rice Mill Owners’ announced that they would ly rice to the Territory at an price of £A6S per ton —a drop in of £lB per ton—and the P-NG inistration announced that the rgo was on again.
Is, naturally, was regarded as a iph for P-NG bargaining—as it übtedly was. But there is one t that is unknown to most imers in the Islands: Before he n his mission to Fiji in March r ordham told PIM that before alian rice interests were able op their price by £lB per ton rear, they had to persuade the Rice Marketing Board to pay >sidy. Many who asked with heat last April how the asso n could suddenly afford to sell ce at so very much less will iterested to know this, and ps will revise their opinion of idustry. How much of the £lB on fall was made up bv the ly, PIM does not know; it was to us, too, to know that the taxpayer was helping out with ; ration costs in P-NG. re is undoubtedly much to be or a soundly based Australian industry—recent history has i that during the war and it was a very present help ne of trouble. The industry down also, that it can adapt to circumstance—albeit it had shown the way pretty sharply, it can deliver the goods the ner wants —such as brown or in-enriched rice for P-NG — the customer certain that he ting what he ordered.
Fiji market, in normal years, ikely to be more than a small m of that of P-NG, but rrent visit of Mr. Fordham in s that Australian rice interests dive to the desirability of ing what there is of it, and ig what it can to overcome the lice there against the Aus i product.
Rice Will Cost Less This
Year
The Australian rice harvest is in April and the price for the year is fixed as from May 1. For the 12 months beginning on that date, therefore, the FOB price Sydney will be £A62/10- per ton for brown rice; £A6B 10/- for whfie vitamin enriched rice, with a surcharge of 10 - per ton on lots less than 5 tons.
These prices will apply to rice exported to Papua-New Guinea but we understand from Mr. Fordham that Fiji will also participate in these prices which represent a sub stantial fall from the 1955 rates when brown rice for P-NG was £A6S per ton, FOB Sydney.