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New Zealand Kiwifruit Growers Inc chief executive Colin Bond.
It's been a fantastic season so far.
That’s the message from Colin Bond, chief executive of New Zealand Kiwifruit Growers Inc (NZKGI) – the organisation that represents the nation’s kiwifruit growers.
He says all the Red kiwifruit has been sold into the market and most of the Gold and Green has been shipped. Bond says the feedback from the market has been extremely positive around fruit quality this year and they are very excited about what the rest of the season holds.
He says it will be close to record payouts for some of the smaller kiwifruit product groups such as organic and still very strong for Sun Gold, although not quite a record, and returns for green growers will be better after a few difficult years.
“However, there are certainly headwinds,” he told Rural News.
“In China for example we are seeing a slight drop in consumer confidence and similarly in Japan. But a big positive is the fact that kiwifruit has a diversified market portfolio and an example of this is that Europe is going extremely well,” he says.
Bond says on balance the sector looks to a strong season, notwithstanding the few headwinds. He says there is no such thing as perfect season but all the messages they are hearing out of Zespri are positive.
He says this is the time of the year when kiwifruit orchardists start thinking about late frosts and setting themselves up for a good 2026 crop.
Bond says winter pruning has now been done for most of crops and Red growers will be thinking about bud break.
The head of the New Zealand Kiwifruit Growers organisation NZKGI says the points raised in a report about the sector by Waikato University professor Frank Scrimgeour were not a surprise.
Probably the smoothest season growers can remember. That's how Kiwifruit Growers Association (NZKGI) chief executive Colin Bond describes the situation with fruit picking just past its peak.
New Zealand’s 2025 kiwifruit harvest has started with the first fruit picked in the Bay of Plenty, marking the earliest ever harvest.
Kiwifruit marketer Zespri got the go-ahead from New Zealand kiwifruit growers to increase their plantings of its fruit overseas.
Climate change and its effects was the number one item on the agenda of the annual International Kiwifruit conference held this year in Greece.
BNZ says it is backing aspiring dairy farmers through an innovative new initiative that helps make the first step to farm ownership or sharemilking a little easier.
LIC chief executive David Chin says meeting the revised methane reduction targets will rely on practical science, smart technology, and genuine collaboration across the sector.
Lincoln University Dairy Farm will be tweaking some management practices after an animal welfare complaint laid in mid-August, despite the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) investigation into the complaint finding no cause for action.
A large slice of the $3.2 billion proposed capital return for Fonterra farmer shareholders could end up with the banks.
Opening a new $3 million methane research barn in Waikato this month, Agriculture Minister Todd McClay called on the dairy sector to “go as fast as you can and prove the concepts”.
New Zealand’s trade with the European Union has jumped $2 billion since a free trade deal entered into force in May last year.
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