Ōpōtiki grower wins 2025 Kiwifruit Innovation Award
Brett Wotton, an Eastern Bay of Plenty kiwifruit grower and harvest contractor, has won the 2025 Kiwifruit Innovation Award for his work to support lifting fruit quality across the industry.
An anonymous group called Concerned Growers Collective is opposing two Zespri resolutions now before growers which the group claims would cause “irreparable damage” to the industry.
Zespri went on a roadshow in the past two weeks asking kiwifruit growers to vote in support of two resolutions: 12-month marketing and ownership by Zespri of all plant variety rights (PVRs).
The poll will finish on March 15 and is counted in two ways; resolutions generally need 75% support.
The mysterious Concerned Growers Collective has told growers a ‘yes’ vote “will lock in a new strategy for Zespri whereby it earns 85% of its profits from licences that should belong to you and New Zealand, and also allow it to grow and sell kiwifruit from anywhere in the world (other than China and Chile) ahead of yours”.
The group, which would not field someone to speak to Rural News, claims on its website and in printed material that members are second generation growers who wish to remain anonymous to ensure discussion “is focused on the issues not personalities”.
“Sadly, there is a history in the industry of personalising and characterising issues, which distracts from sensible and informed debate,” the group says in a statement.
“While these resolutions are good for Zespri shareholders, there are significant risks to New Zealand kiwifruit growers that have not been considered fully or even debated by the industry.
“A ‘yes’ vote will permanently change the drivers of Zespri from marketing New Zealand-grown kiwifruit to a corporate that is focused on the international fruit trade and variety development to the benefit of its shareholders.”
The group claims it has sent letters to all growers through NZ and is getting positive support. It says the resolutions are in essence asking growers to approve:
- Zespri moving from a marketer of NZ-grown kiwifruit to a grower in offshore countries including other southern hemisphere countries
- Marketing kiwifruit grown in those countries 12 months a year
- Owning, using and managing kiwifruit plant variety rights developed in NZ by Zespri and Plant & Food Research Ltd, using funding from the Government and growers.
The collective says it supports the single point of entry and that NZ has desperately fought to maintain that status under international pressure to deregulate.
“Ownership of PVRs by Zespri will greatly decrease our ability to defend this position,” the group claims.
“The proposal to entrench ownership of kiwifruit varieties also misappropriates the investment of NZ growers and the NZ taxpayer in the kiwifruit industry, particularly the new varieties of kiwifruit being developed by Plant & Food Research Ltd for Zespri.”
The dissidents want grower ownership of PVRs under a separate entity.
Applications have now opened for the 2026 Meat Industry Association scholarships.
Bank of New Zealand (BNZ) says it is backing aspiring dairy farmers through a new initiative designed to make the first step to farm ownership or sharemilking easier.
OPINION: While farmers are busy and diligently doing their best to deal with unwanted gasses, the opponents of farming - namely the Greens and their mates - are busy polluting the atmosphere with tirades of hot air about what farmers supposedly aren't doing.
OPINION: For close to eight years now, I have found myself talking about methane quite a lot.
The Royal A&P Show of New Zealand, hosted by the Canterbury A&P Association, is back next month, bigger and better after the uncertainty of last year.
Claims that farmers are polluters of waterways and aquifers and 'don't care' still ring out from environmental groups and individuals. The phrase 'dirty dairying' continues to surface from time to time. But as reporter Peter Burke points out, quite the opposite is the case. He says, quietly and behind the scenes, farmers are embracing new ideas and technologies to make their farms sustainable, resilient, environmentally friendly and profitable.
OPINION: The Greens have taken the high moral ground on the Palestine issue and been leading political agitators in related…
One of the most galling aspects of the tariffs whacked on our farm exports to the US is the fact…