Early start to kiwifruit harvest is gold for Bay

The first gold kiwifruit for 2009 has been picked and packed, mar king an early start to a harvest that brings with it a welcome boost to the Bay of Plenty econ omy.
``The kiwifruit industry is a key economic driver in the Bay of Plenty and generates revenues and flow-on revenues of around $2 billion annually, contributing 19 per cent to the region's gross domestic product,' said Mike Chapman, chief executive officer of New Zealand Kiwifruit Growers.
Over the coming months up to 20,000 people, including seasonal workers, will be employed harves ting and packing millions of green and gold fruit, pumping revenue into the local economy at a time when unemployment has been on the rise.
``The industry in broad terms needs an additional 9000 workers for harvest and the majority of these workers are Kiwis,' said Mr Chapman.
``For the coming season there will be a significant increase in the number of Kiwis employed for harvest as the industry is commit ted to employing Kiwis first.'
Mr Chapman said there would be less than 1500 foreign workers employed under the Recognised Seasonal Employer scheme (RSE) this year, compared with 1800 em ployed in 2008.
At Apata Ltd near Katikati 300 staff are today packing about a million trays of gold kiwifruit for Japan and Europe, picked from Murray McBride's Te Puke or chard.
Todd Muller, chief executive of ficer for Apata said the fruit was of excellent quality and, despite the early start, the facility had all its staff in place.
This season Apata will harvest a total of 7.8 million trays of both green and gold fruit from 342 or chards, up 10 per cent on last season.
Apata was among the first Bay of Plenty post-harvest operators to begin packing, along with East pack and Trevelyans, but the first New Zealand fruit of the season was again harvested in the Gis borne and Hawke's Bay regions.
Industry's marketer Zespri is making the most of the early start.
``In order to optimise export sales we've planned an aggressive start to the 2009 selling season aiming to have a high volume of top-quality fruit out into the mar kets earlier than ever before,' said Carol Ward, Zespri's corporate and grower director.
The first vessel of the season, carrying 560 pallets (about 140,000 trays) of Zespri Gold kiwifruit, would be loading on Friday. Last year the first ship departed Gis borne for Japan during the first week of April.
``We've got more ships sched uled this year than 2008/09 season and a strong demand for con tainers. Several vessels are sched uled in weeks 14 to 16 (April 5 to 19),' she said.
``The fruit has excellent taste and great quality. We've got a good clean crop, good fruit size and we're excited about the fruit this season.'
While the first gold fruit had already met the harvest quality standards which ensure its good eating quality, the harvest of early green kiwifruit is not expected until after March 29.
New Zealand Kiwifruit Growers Inc chairman Peter Ombler said the early start to the season, around a week ahead of 2008, was particularly pleasing, given the world economy.
``This enables us to get a good sharp start to the selling season,' he said. ``There is guarded optim ism among growers that the season will go well, following a round of grower-Zespri meetings throughout the country,' he said.
Growers will be hoping their ``guarded optimism' is rewarded with sound returns. The recent Ze spri Three Year Outlook report has acknowledged that the incom es of 34 per cent of growers of green fruit are not sustainable.