New Zealand kiwifruit harvest kicks off
New Zealand’s 2025 kiwifruit harvest has started with the first fruit picked in the Bay of Plenty, marking the earliest ever harvest.
Touch wood, to date the kiwifruit season has generally been good. That’s the view of Colin Bond, chief executive of New Zealand Kiwifruit Growers Incorporated (NZKGI), the organisation that represents kiwifruit growers.
Bond says this good news comes after two challenging years where weather and labour had been a problem.
But he says this season has been a turnaround with no problems with labour or weather and it’s been a very solid growing season. Bond says the favourable weather has meant picking the kiwifruit harvest has been much easier, with few stoppages, meaning a continuous flow of fruit into the postharvest facilities.
“We just need this to continue so that we can get all the fruit off the vines in the same good condition as we have been able to so far,” he says.
Two things that helped this season, says Bond, are the plentiful labour – with more backpackers coming into the country, the lifting of the cap on the number of RSE (overseas) workers from the Pacific Islands allowed into NZ and the rise in the number of kiwi’s seeking work in the sector; and new postharvest automation which requires less labour.
“The most important thing for post-harvest has been the high quality of fruit coming into them from the orchard. With plenty of well-trained staff, combined with the good weather, the post-harvest people are getting consistent supplies which allows them to have better structured shifts and achieve greater efficiency,” he says.
Bond says overall the season has been good, but there are regions such as Tairawhiti where the effects of Cyclone Gabrielle and other rain events have caused big problems for some growers.
Among the regular exhibitors at last month’s South Island Agricultural Field Days, the one that arguably takes the most intensive preparation every time is the PGG Wrightson Seeds site.
Two high producing Canterbury dairy farmers are moving to blended stockfeed supplements fed in-shed for a number of reasons, not the least of which is to boost protein levels, which they can’t achieve through pasture under the region’s nitrogen limit of 190kg/ha.
Buoyed by strong forecasts for milk prices and a renewed demand for dairy assets, the South Island rural real estate market has begun the year with positive momentum, according to Colliers.
The six young cattle breeders participating in the inaugural Holstein Friesian NZ young breeder development programme have completed their first event of the year.
New Zealand feed producers are being encouraged to boost staff training to maintain efficiency and product quality.
OPINION: The world is bracing for a trade war between the two biggest economies.
OPINION: In the same way that even a stopped clock is right twice a day, economists sometimes get it right.
OPINION: The proposed RMA reforms took a while to drop but were well signaled after the election.