Lucerne For Export

To a casual passer-by, most of the Poverty Bay flats a few years ago seemed to be occupied by grazing sheep. It's a different story today.

Now, out of 32,000 acres suitable for cropping, over 25,000 are given over to maize, process crops, grapes, etc. Among these are 850 acres growing lucerne, basis of an expanding export industry in lucerne pellets

For nearly six months of the year lucerne harvesters work 24 hours a day cutting the crop and transferring it to tracks which operate a shuttle service to the pelleting plant of Meadowbank Lucerne Ltd. at Bushmere, a subsidiary of Thos. Corson & Son Ltd.

The plant is operated in association with Kanematsu- Gosho (NZ), a Japanese company, and the pellets, production of which is expected to increase to 10,000 tons a year, are loaded at Gisborne harbour for direct shipment to Japan.