kiwifruit

Gold kiwifruit volumes forecast to rise in 2014

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Kiwifruit growers have taken another step along the recovery pathway from the vine-killing disease Psa, with gold kiwifruit volumes forecast to rise in 2014 after two years of decline, Zespri’s Chief Executive Lain Jager says.

The 2014 harvest began in orchards in Gisborne, Hawke’s Bay and Te Puke last week, with the first shipment of Zespri Kiwifruit due to leave the Port of Tauranga on the MV Lapponian Reefer for Japan on Sunday (30 March).

Mr Jager said it was forecast the industry would harvest up to 16 million trays of gold kiwifruit – which includes around 9 million trays of Zespri SunGold/Gold3 – and a total crop volume of all Zespri varieties of around 85 million trays of kiwifruit. The estimated gold volume is up from around 11 million trays harvested last season.

Mr Jager said that Zespri is well on track to having 50 million trays of SunGold by 2018, with over half of New Zealand growers now growing more than one variety on their orchards. The industry earned around NZ$1 billion in export earnings last year.

Zespri expects to load around 49 chartered refrigerated vessels over the next 32 weeks to exclusively carry the majority of the 2014 New Zealand kiwifruit harvest to key markets in Asia and Europe, including two ships direct to Shanghai.

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Instability in Ukraine affects fresh produce

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The political instability in the Ukraine is having an effect on the fresh produce imports and exports to the country.The cost of fresh produce has increased by 10% in February, citrus alone rising by 20%.

The Ukrainian border with Poland is closed due to the situation and no fruit or veg imports or exports are taking place. One Polish apple exporter said that if the situation continued it would greatly affect the market, Poland exports 200,000 tonnes of apples to Ukraine every year.

Similarly imports of Greek kiwis have ground to a halt this week. A Ukrainian importer said that it was becoming more and more difficult to purchase fresh produce from abroad. “The value of our currency has dropping steadily making everything very expensive, to add to this the banks are now taking 1½ to supply foreign currency which makes payment very slow.”

Most fruit and vegetables are still available in the Ukraine, but with the change in the administration getting customs clearance is proving to be a long progress too.

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Zespri releases new payout forecast

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Zespri chief executive Lain Jager says everything is on track for growers to be getting healthy returns and prices for green kiwifruit are up. Growers of green kiwifruit are earning over $40,000 per hectare, the best return in 10 years.

The price for gold kiwifruit is also very strong at $12.60 per tray, but it is on reduced volumes because of the vine-killing disease PSA. Mr Jager has added that the 2014 crop, which will shortly start being harvested, is looking good and gold kiwifruit numbers are beginning to recover. Last year 2 million trays of the new variety of gold kiwifruit were harvested and this year it will be about 9.5 million trays.

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