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New Zealand Kiwifruit Growers Inc chief executive Colin Bond.
It's been a fantastic season so far.
That’s the message from Colin Bond, chief executive of New Zealand Kiwifruit Growers Inc (NZKGI) – the organisation that represents the nation’s kiwifruit growers.
He says all the Red kiwifruit has been sold into the market and most of the Gold and Green has been shipped. Bond says the feedback from the market has been extremely positive around fruit quality this year and they are very excited about what the rest of the season holds.
He says it will be close to record payouts for some of the smaller kiwifruit product groups such as organic and still very strong for Sun Gold, although not quite a record, and returns for green growers will be better after a few difficult years.
“However, there are certainly headwinds,” he told Rural News.
“In China for example we are seeing a slight drop in consumer confidence and similarly in Japan. But a big positive is the fact that kiwifruit has a diversified market portfolio and an example of this is that Europe is going extremely well,” he says.
Bond says on balance the sector looks to a strong season, notwithstanding the few headwinds. He says there is no such thing as perfect season but all the messages they are hearing out of Zespri are positive.
He says this is the time of the year when kiwifruit orchardists start thinking about late frosts and setting themselves up for a good 2026 crop.
Bond says winter pruning has now been done for most of crops and Red growers will be thinking about bud break.
The head of the New Zealand Kiwifruit Growers organisation NZKGI says the points raised in a report about the sector by Waikato University professor Frank Scrimgeour were not a surprise.
Probably the smoothest season growers can remember. That's how Kiwifruit Growers Association (NZKGI) chief executive Colin Bond describes the situation with fruit picking just past its peak.
New Zealand’s 2025 kiwifruit harvest has started with the first fruit picked in the Bay of Plenty, marking the earliest ever harvest.
Kiwifruit marketer Zespri got the go-ahead from New Zealand kiwifruit growers to increase their plantings of its fruit overseas.
Climate change and its effects was the number one item on the agenda of the annual International Kiwifruit conference held this year in Greece.
With the current situation in the European farm machinery market being described as difficult at best, it’s perhaps no surprise that the upcoming AgriSIMA 2026 agricultural machinery exhibition, scheduled for February 2026 at Paris-Nord Villepinte, has been cancelled.
The Meat Industry Association of New Zealand (MIA) has launched the first in-market activation of the refreshed Taste Pure Nature country-of-origin brand with an exclusive pop-up restaurant experience in Shanghai.
Jayna Wadsworth, daughter of the late New Zealand wicketkeeper Ken Wadsworth, has launched an auction of cricket memorabilia to raise funds for I Am Hope's youth mental health work.
As we move into the 2025/26 growing season, the Tractor and Machinery Association (TAMA) reports that the third quarter results for the year to date is showing that the stagnated tractor market of the last 18 months is showing signs of recovery.
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