Manuka caution advised

Neil Mossop takes pride in his honey products.

Manuka plantations could offer landowners and farmers a good economic return in the future but it is still considered a risk by some involved in the industry.

Mossop's Honey owner Neil Mossop advised caution.

Farmers and landowners could stand to lose money as manuka plantations may work in some areas but they would not work in others due to soil types and other factors, he said.

A UMF foundation member, Federated Farmers executive, National Beekeeping Association member and Farm Forestry member, Mr Mossop said data he had collected over 24 years showed pine trees were more lucrative.

"This year we have just planted another 70ha of pine trees. If manuka is so profitable why am I not planting manuka instead of pine trees?"

Comvita chief executive Brett Hewlett said it had held seminars because of the overwhelming interest in manuka plantations.

"They are absolutely fascinated by it. A lot of the landowners that are approaching us sort of struggle having sustainable farming operations on low-grade land that hasn't really delivered much in terms of grazing or returns from forestry."

"It's just marginal, backcountry land so I think for a lot of these people they are looking for some solutions on how they can get some economic return ... a portion also have a carbon credit obligation to replant."

The seminar held at Paengaroa was an information sharing event, he said. However, Comvita was involved in many other initiatives with research organisations, including Massey University, and was involved with a PGP government supported programmed that had spanned seven years.

Planting manuka was also about beekeeping practices that would be employed on the land and other tree species to support bee health, he said.

"There are a lot of factors you have to consider before embarking on the investment of buying trees and planting them. It is new, we are still learning as an industry and as a company what sort of returns can you give and what are the risks associated with it?"

He agreed that farmers and landowners needed to do their homework before embarking on any venture.

"There are a lot of people out there at the moment offering manuka planting services that don't have that knowledge or know-how, from a beekeepers point of view."

Comvita had a comprehensive breeding programme that included about 25 trial plantations across New Zealand, Mr Hewlett said.

"We can really try these different varieties in the real world and we are taking all the data from that and combining it with the data we get from the PGP-funded research programme. So that means we can go with confidence to a landowner and say, 'Based on your land type and land variety, this is what we recommend'."

Although Mr Hewlett said the manuka plantation programme was only in its infancy, he expected it to escalate over the next few years.

"We don't necessarily want people going out and spending millions of dollars planting vast areas of the country and then have them all die and not deliver an economic return."