T&G's Gibbs steps up single-desk attack

Tony Gibbs predicts that global kiwifruit supply will soon exceed demand, leading to a potential price crash for green kiwifruit. Photo / Alan Gibson

Turners & Growers chairman Tony Gibbs has intensified his attack on kiwifruit growers controlling the export of their fruit outside Australasia through Zespri International.

He has sent growers and other industry participants a colourful presentation urging them to take part in the debate.

Gibbs said growers needed to protect the future of orchardists growing the "green" cultivars after Zespri projected an average green kiwifruit return for next year of $3.42/tray, down 26c from this year's earnings of $3.68.

He said the fall continued a downward trend in returns for greengrowers and was the second lowest figure in seven years.

Over the next three or four years global kiwifruit supply would exceed demand, leading to a potential price crash for green kiwifruit, he said.

Gibbs suggested that a similar oversupply caused the "kiwifruit disaster of 1987" with the number of trays exported jumping from a record 29 million in 1986 to 49 million in 1987.

The industry has operated a single-desk system in export markets since 1987 when the Kiwifruit Marketing Board became responsible for marketing New Zealand's crop.

Before then, a free-for-all approach to exports meant numerous exporters were undercutting each other in overseas markets, and growers voted to regulate the sendings.

Zespri International won its single desk exporting status in 1999 when the kiwifruit industry was restructured under legislation sought by growers.

The key issue about which Turners & Growers has complained is that only Zespri or those exporters with a collaborative contract can legally sell kiwifruit in overseas markets other than Australia.

Gibbs said the 1999 reforms were only intended to be an interim measure and the government of the day knew that corporatisation of Zespri would inevitably lead to deregulation.

In July 1999, the then National-led Government's Food and Fibre Minister John Luxton and Finance Minister Sir William Birch said the Government had conceded that a single kiwifruit marketing desk should continue "without a sunset clause".

Kiwifruit New Zealand would have regulatory and monitoring roles and Zespri International would be a company owning all industry assets and brands.

Other players could be approved to do collaborative marketing with Zespri, which would have roles in export marketing, crop acquisition, grading, quality, pricing and commercial research.

- NZPA