Kiwifruit Growers See Positive Future for industry

Kiwifruit Growers See Positive Future for the Kiwifruit Industry

Peter Ombler, NZ Kiwifruit Growers Incorporated (NZKGI) President sees a positive future for the kiwifruit industry. “Growers have been invigorated by recent events and the release of the new ZESPRI kiwifruit varieties. The industry is in good heart”.

In the last few days there have been a number of significant developments for the kiwifruit industry. ZESPRI has announced an increase in payments to be made to growers this season in spite of the difficult world-wide financial situation and the High Court has ruled in favour of preserving the kiwifruit industry’s current structure.

One of the most important functions that NZKGI performs is to monitor ZESPRI performance and make submissions to ZESPRI representing growers’ views as ZESPRI develops policy, contracts and procedures. Most importantly last year NZKGI was involved in re-negotiating ZESPRI’s commission for the next three years. At today’s NZKGI Annual General Meeting this monitoring role was reviewed and the highlights of the previous year discussed.

Peter Ombler reported to growers that NZKGI had effectively lobbied Government and taken a key role in the T&G Court case to preserve the industry’s Single Point of Entry structure. The position adopted by NZKGI was mandated by a Colmar Brunton poll conducted in February this year.

In February’s Poll 90% of kiwifruit growers agreed that the Single Point of Entry is critical for the future success of the industry. In the same poll 87% of growers rated NZKGI’s overall performance as either quite or very good and 93% of growers rated ZESPRI's overall operating and marketing performance as either quite or very good.

Other key activities that NZKGI has been active with include resource management submissions, managing spray issues, reliable and suitable seasonal labour, marketing fruit in Australia and ZESPRI share alignment.

Mr Ombler noted that it had been a busy but successful year for NZKGI.

Commenting on ZESPRI’s Annual General Meeting Mr Ombler noted that the normal range of issues had been raised by shareholders. Importantly, ZESPRI had continued to perform well in the markets and is working to increase GREEN returns. “The future of the kiwifruit industry depends on innovation and cutting-edge marketing by ZESPRI.”

ZESPRI’s own research spend was $9 million in the last financial year and there is additional leveraging of government funding. This compares well to other primary industries where onshore competition hampers collaborative innovation. The most recent comparison (2008) shows kiwifruit research spend of 2.5% of revenue compared to Dairy Produce’s 1.5%. ZESPRI’s export earnings from 2000-2009 have a compound growth rate of 9.88%, growth which is underpinned by continuing grower support for the structure that ZESPRI operates within. By contrast apples, New Zealand’s second largest fresh fruit export crop, had negative growth over that period. Dairy Produce had a 9.71% growth.

ENDS

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