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PRIMARY PRODUCTION
handle 76 per cent of local production. The reason for nego- tiating sales instead of holding auctions is that on a normal day some 20,000 separate lots may be sold to nearly 3,000 buyers. The number of lots rises to nearly 30,000 a day in the main season, making sales by auction impracticable.
Production during the year was affected by the drought. There was an increase of one per cent in the average annual wholesale price, while the quantity marketed decreased by seven per cent. A quantity of imported vegetables also passed through the organiza- tion's market at Yau Ma Tei. Figures are given in Appendix V. The organization is self-supporting, the cost of the services pro- vided being met from a 10 per cent commission charged on sales. Thirty per cent of this commission is refunded to the marketing co-operative societies in recognition of the marketing responsibili- ties they assume in respect of their own produce. The organization is non-profit-making and any financial surpluses are ploughed back into industry in the form of improved services and other benefits. One example is the aid which the organization has given to farmers in overcoming a main problem of recent years-lack of a cheap fertilizer-through a scheme for the maturation and distribution of nightsoil at a low price.
Cheap credit is a further important service of the organization. Farmers may obtain loans, through the Commissioner for Co- operative Development and Fisheries, from the Vegetable Market- ing Organization Loan Fund. Since the establishment of this fund farmers have received 796 loans totalling $3,996,600.00. It is Government's declared policy that the organization should one day be run by the farmers themselves as a co-operative enterprise. As a move toward this end the salesmen of individual vegetable marketing co-operative societies have been authorized under the Agricultural Products (Marketing) Ordinance as market salesmen.
CO-OPERATIVE SOCIETIES
A Registrar of Co-operative Societies was appointed in 1950, and the combined Co-operative and Marketing Department, now part of the Co-operative Development and Fisheries Department, came into being later in the same year. Since then, the co-operative movement has made rapid progress in Hong Kong and is being