Top Maori growers attract large crowds

They are also part of the judging process to determine the ultimate winner. Large crowds attened all the field days and the quality of the actual events was of a high standard. This is especially true given that all of the finalists were still having to deal with the aftermath of the adverse events and coping with - in some cases - significant crop losses.

The first event was held at Whiritoa orchards at Te Teko in the eastern Bay of Plenty.

This orchard is owned by Māori Investments Limited (MIL), which has 5,000 shareholders. It has two orchards - one, just over five hectares which produces organic gold kiwifruit that was planted in 2022 and a second which is 6.68ha and covered, which produces SunGold kiwifuit.

MIL currently employs seven permanent staff and take on up to 20 fixed term employees during the peak seasons.

The field day began with guests being welcomed onto the beautiful Kokohinau Marae, where presentations from members of the MIL Board and staff about the operation were heard. These were held at the marae because the planned presentations at the orchard site had to be cancelled due to heavy rain in the days leading up to the event.

However a break in the weather on the day of the event enabled visitors to travel by bus to the orchards. During the tour of the site, they heard from orchard manager Helen Scott and property manager Rex Anderson.

Among the guests was the Minister for Māori Development, Willie Jackson who told the guests that the Ahuwhenua Trophy awards are something to be really proud of. Jackson says he loves attending the field days and awards dinner, and that it's one of the highlights of his ministerial portfolio.

MIL board chair John O'Brien described the field day as fantastic and says the good turnout was quite unexpected - given all the rain that fell in the days prior. He says they had to pivot at the last minute to hold the presentations at the historic Kokohinau Marae rather than on-orchard, but that Kokohinau was a very appropriate place to stage their presentations given its history with MIL.

O'Brien says while all the fruit in their orchards have been harvested, it was not an easy task given the wet weather. He says other adverse events such as hail and frost caused problems for MIL this past season.

"Everybody has suffered through the wet weather events but we fortunately we dodged a bullet with Cyclone Gabrielle, but we had other challenges with frost and hail," he told Hort News.