Friday, March 29, 2024

Grower unease over Zespri China trial

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The head of one of the country’s largest kiwifruit orchard companies is predicting Zespri may have a tough time getting growers to vote in favour of having a Chinese trial running for its SunGold fruit.
Seeka chief executive Michael Franks says the company’s category 1 emissions have fallen 4% since 2019.
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Zespri is seeking to establish a trial programme working with growers of unlicenced SunGold fruit in the Sichuan province of China, utilising Zespri staff and growing protocols.

The initial trial proposal was turned down by New Zealand’s overseeing authority Kiwifruit New Zealand, on grounds the proposal posed too great a risk to NZ growers, including the loss of intellectual property and erosion of brand reputation.

The trial proposal is in response to the estimated 5000ha of SunGold fruit already growing there, and expected to only increase. There is just over 6000ha of SunGold being grown in NZ.

Zespri is running a grower information roadshow outlining the risks of the trial, and also highlighting the risks if the fruit is left to be grown and controlled by Chinese growers.

But Seeka chief executive Michael Franks says while some growers are indifferent to what Zespri may or may not do, most growers would have some trepidation about the plan’s implications.

“Zespri is looking at reversing back some of the original plan. But the issue is we are exporting our IP for how we grow it, handle it and present it to our market. It does not matter if it is one million trays, 200,000 trays or 50 trays, you are still going to give away a lot,” Franks said.

The trial intends to run over three years, overseeing the growth of 50ha of vines, producing about 200,000 trays in the first year of production. The trial will include evaluating how and when the Zespri fruit can get on the shelf, offered as a locally-grown item yielding a Zespri premium.

Franks questions whether money is necessarily the main objective for Chinese growers.

“That is versus having a reliable crop to help feed the country that is a high-quality fruit, available at affordable prices,” he said.

Other primary sectors including China’s dairy industry have a strongly state driven mandate to exist to help the country obtain a greater level of food security, despite it proving cheaper to import overseas products.

Significant volumes of out of season Green and SunGold crop are already grown successfully in other countries, primarily Italy, France and Greece.

But Franks says the move to try and oversee the crop being grown in China contradicts a decision made by growers back in 2019 not to allow Zespri fruit to be grown in either Chile or China.

“And nothing has really changed since, except the fruit has leaked into China,” he said.

But Zespri has confirmed that it was made clear to growers then that if it wanted to undertake activities in China or Chile at a later date, it would come back to growers to discuss the matter and seek approval.

The fruit is believed to have ended up in China by way of a Chinese-New Zealand grower who illegally took plantings over. He has since been found guilty under the Plant Varieties Act and fined $15 million.

“We do not know the area it is being grown in very well, but it is a patchwork quilt of small orchards and it seems to be a coordinated plan of grafting,” he said.

The Chinese fruit would ripen in late-August, compared to early-March for NZ fruit, and Zespri estimates 30% of NZ’s crop would still be in-market when the local fruit becomes available.

Estimates are that local fruit could grow to anywhere between 30-90 million trays. NZ’s current SunGold sales to China equate to about 21 million trays.

“But it still means we (NZ) have a good window to sell our fruit over April, May, June, July and some of August before it shows up. It is not a complete train smash. NZ-grown fruit will still continue to demand a premium,” he said.

Zespri maintains there is a risk shelf space may be lost to variable quality, lower-value alternatives that set a lower quality to value expectation in the market.

Other kiwifruit growers spoken to by Farmers Weekly were mixed in their views on supporting the trial. 

One grower maintained it would be a better move to leave Chinese growers to their own devices and focus only on maintaining the NZ fruit as a premium, high-quality brand.

Another said a move to try and corral the unauthorised fruit was an understandable attempt to control fruit quality in a market notorious for duplicating quality brands.

NZ Kiwifruit Growers Incorporated is not taking a position on the trials on behalf of growers.

Chief executive Nikki Johnson says growers have been informed about the risks and opportunities of the proposed trial in China through roadshows to ensure an informed grower debate and vote is taken in June.

“An understanding of growers’ views on the risks and opportunities associated with a trial will be evident through the results of the producer vote,” Johnson said.

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