New Zealand growers are calling on cricket fans heading to tomorrow's World Cup Cricket match between the Black Caps and Australia at Eden Park to forgo fresh fruit and vegetables.
In a full page advertisement in today's New Zealand Herald, the country's commercial fruit and vegetable growers call for Kiwi cricket fans to "hit an unwelcome Aussie visitor for six!"
"This is the only time we will ask you not to eat fruit," the ad says. "New Zealand growers appeal to cricket fans - Please don't take any fruit to the big game tomorrow."
The appeal comes as Ministry for Primary Industries staff fight to eradicate an incursion of the potentially devastating Queensland fruit fly, which was discovered in Grey Lynn last week.
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The unwanted pest could devastate our lucrative commercial horticulture industry and, if established here, result in international export restrictions on our fruit and vegetables.
In a joint press release this morning from Horticulture New Zealand, Pipfruit New Zealand and Kiwifruit Vine Health, the organisations said the industry that took every opportunity to promote healthy eating was taking the unusual step of asking fans not to take fresh fruit or vegetables with them into the stadium.
"Eden Park, the venue for Saturday's World Cup Cricket clash between Australia and New Zealand, is right on the border of the controlled area. This means no fruit and vegetable material can be taken out of the stadium.
"We are asking cricket fans to leave their fruit and vegetables at home when they head to the stadium," Horticulture New Zealand chief executive Peter Silcock said.
"You know it must be a serious situation if we are asking people NOT to have fruit and vegetables."
The three industry groups had joined together to pay for the full page advertisement.
"We feel it is the most pragmatic approach. It makes sense to ask people not to take food into the ground which would ultimately need to be thrown away as they were leaving," Pipfruit New Zealand chief executive Alan Pollard said.
The horticulture industry was united in its support of MPI's response to the fruit fly.
"We are grateful to the residents in the controlled areas who have been inconvenienced by this discovery, and also to the staff working on it and the organisers of the Pasifika event and the cricket who have had to make significant changes to their plans," Kiwifruit Vine Health chief executive Barry O'Neil said.
The potential risk to the $6 billion New Zealand horticulture industry (including fruit, vegetables and wine) from the Queensland fruit fly establishing here was two-fold, the statement said.
• The destruction caused by the pest and the ongoing cost of attempting to control it.
• The cost of international markets choosing not to accept our products.
The pest would also have a devastating effect on New Zealand's home gardens.
It was announced yesterday that a seventh fruit fly had been discovered in traps. However MPI says it is confident the incursion remains a localised population that will be successfully eradicated.
