Zespri chief executive Lain Jager says the kiwifruit industry is confident.
This week we are celebrating excellence in leadership as we publish the nominees for the 2015 Business Leader of the Year. The winner will be revealed on Saturday in the Weekend Herald.
Zespri chief executive Lain Jager has been at the forefront of one of the most spectacular turnaround stories of the New Zealand primary sector - the kiwifruit industry's recovery from the Psa virus.
Psa cast a pall over the sector during 2010-11. By 2013-14, production of gold kiwifruit was down
55 per cent on the previous year. Big calls had to be made about taking out the affected vines and the industry faced tough times.
New cultivar Gold3 proved to be Psa-resistant, but growers still faced up to two years of lost production while re-grafting their vines.
Since then there has been a full recovery in production to greater than pre-Psa levels. Orchard prices, which slumped during the crisis, have bounced back strongly and confidence has returned.
