New Zealand avocados worth at least $NZ1.6 million and sitting in ships off California may be unloaded as early as tomorrow, but non-perishable goods caught up in the West Coast ports stoppage may take up to 10 weeks to clear.
The United States president George W Bush has asked a federal court to re-open West Coast ports and impose a ceasefire that would end a caustic 10-day labour lockout, which has cost the fragile economy up to $US2 billion ($NZ4 billion) a day.
The US government intervention under its Taft-Hartley Labour Act is expected to give 80 days of normal operation of the ports, and Associated Press reported today that ships carrying food and other perishables will be unloaded first when dockworkers return, which could be as early as tomorrow.
About 65,000 5.5 kilogram trays of avocados - worth between $NZ25 and $NZ30 each - have been marooned by the port stoppages when the ships carrying them arrived off Los Angeles on Tuesday.
Avocado Industry Council chief executive Jonathon Cutting said he had news from the United States that port workers were going back to work and would unload refrigerated shipping first.
"It was actually a container boat lockout and reefer shipping was not so affected," Mr Cutting said.
Industry spokesmen hoped the avocados would be unloaded before the fruit lost significant shelf life.
Team Avocado director Alistair Young said President Bush's intevention could legally force the striking port workers back to work. He thought the situation would cool and unloading would be back to normal at the end of the week.
Avocado Growers Association president Hugh Moore said the reefer ships used by most of the industry to transport avocado would be given priority.
"And we're just hoping they'll be unloaded in the next three days. At this stage growers haven't lost anything," Mr Moore said.
Mr Young said some parts of the industry had stopped packing for the United States market.
"I feel more comfortable about the ship that's just left ... by the time it gets to the United States everything should be back to normal," Mr Young said.
In some ways the lockout had been beneficial as it had cleared the supply chains and there was now a large demand for product, he said.
"The only problem might be some disruption to the shipping schedule because if all the ships are over there they're not loading avocados here."
Meat Industry Association executive director Bryan Lynch said several hundred tonnes of New Zealand lamb - including chilled product with a shelf life of only two weeks - could be unloaded over the weekend.
"Unloading of vessels will commence within 48 hours," he said.
There was some hope that perishable produce would be unloaded first, which could mean the chilled lamb could be taken off over the weekend. There were also several thousand tonnes of frozen New Zealand beef.
Mr Lynch said that if it looked as though the 80 day period of resumed port operations did not look as though it was going to solve the dispute, meat companies might look at sending future shipments to either East Coast ports, Mexico or Canada.
Growers and exporters would be watching the situation in the United States carefully during the next few weeks.
- NZPA
US Govt port intervention may salvage NZ produce shipments
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