Boost for hort exports
The horticulture sector is a big winner from recent free trade deals sealed with the Gulf states, says Associate Agriculture Minister Nicola Grigg.
“The recovery of kiwifruit is coming through, the apple industry is performing quite well. It’s all about changing varieties and targeting Asian markets,” he says. “There’s been a reasonably good harvest both volume wise and quality wise.
“Avocado is going from strength to strength. The vegetable industry is more steady-as-you-go. With exports of squash and onions people always want them to be better, but it is looking positive for the future,
“Probably this year we had one of our best cherry seasons for a very long time which is not a huge export crop, but significant.” Cherries and things like blueberries are very sought after in the Asian market.”
By June most of the major harvest seasons have finished, starting with asparagus and through to the end of kiwifruit which has just finished harvesting. But then the product goes into the market season; for product like kiwifruit and onions that will stretch out for quite a few months.
“One thing is to have a good crop in terms of volume and quality and the other thing is what are the international markets doing? There’s pretty good demand out there and we’ve had the dollar going the right way from an exporter point of view, and with a lot of countries.
“From a market perspective we are seeing continued strong alignment of the specific exporters in the industry linking much more strongly with their customers and that’s where the future is for New Zealand horticulture.
“We’ve just got to get better and better at doing that and delivering what they want. That is what a big part of our success to date has been. The big change in values for horticulture is all about connecting with those customers, and scale, and being able to deal with those big customers, being able to invest in product development, R&D and getting the delivery mechanisms right within the market share.
“We’re really positive and it’s a good time to be in the horticulture industry.”
Horticulture has a target of becoming a $10 billion industry by 2020. With setbacks like Psa they have wondered at times if they would make that.
“But in the last few years we have seen really strong growth; it is a stretch target but the industry is moving rapidly towards that. You just have to look at the increased value of the pipfruit industry…. That continued recovery in kiwifruit will help as well. You are getting growth in those really big industries. The target of $10b by 2020 probably with Psa has taken a hit but we are back on track and growing. We may not get to the $10b but we will get close to that.”
