NZ avocado growers report mixed season amid weather challenges
Avocado growers are reporting a successful season, but some are struggling to keep their operations afloat following years of bad weather.
NZ Avocado Growers Association chief executive Jen Scoular will step down in August after serving 12 years in the role.
Scoular’s resignation was announced today by association chair Linda Flegg.
She says Scoular has served the association tirelessly over the past 12 years with many achievements along the way.
“When Jen took up the role after a four-year term as a trade diplomat in Hamburg, Germany, our industry was struggling and lacked engagement, communication and systems, which gave Jen a lot to focus on,” says Flegg.
Under her leadership industry value has increased from $82m in 2011-12 to $231m in 2021, and the New Zealand market value from $19m to $62m in 2021-22. During her tenure the industry successfully achieved market access for avocados into both the China and India market, joined the biosecurity partnership with the government and achieved the first horticulture primary growth partnership in 2014, which finished in December 2022.
Flegg says the 10th World Avocado Congress held in Auckland last month was a fitting finale for Scoular.
“With five years in the planning, against the odds of covid and border closures, it was a phenomenal success.”
Scoular will remain in the role until mid-August and will take the opportunity to farewell some of the 1,400 avocados growers across the growing regions.
Flegg says Scoular is leaving “a legacy that will require some big shoes to fill”.
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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