Its chairman, Barry O’Neil, told RNZ’s Checkpoint the virus was the worst in the tomato industry that New Zealand could possibly deal with.
“It’s a virus that has relatively recently spread around the world, it was found in the Middle East in 2015 for the first time and now is on every continent, Europe, North and South America, China, Asia, but this is the first time it’s been found in Australia,” he said.
“It’s extremely infectious and it can have a significant impact, up to 100% of the crop will become infected and yields will decrease by about 70%.
“It’s one of those viruses we’ve been keeping a close eye on as it spreads around the world and our No 1 strategy has to be to keep this virus out of New Zealand.”
O’Neil said until New Zealand fully understood the situation Australia was dealing with, all imports of tomatoes from Australia should be suspended.
“At the moment the Australian authorities are still trying to work through the extent of the spread; one of the properties involved we understand is a very large propagator that sends tomato plants all around South Australia where the infection has been found and in other states.”
He said at present, the Ministry for Primary Industries had restrictions on seed imports.
“Seeds have to be tested before they come to New Zealand now; obviously, as a country dependent on imported seeds for most of our vegetable production, we still have to somehow find a way to import seeds and to import them safely, and that normally requires testing, which is what MPI has put in place with the Australian seed exports.”
Tomato growers would shut up shop and walk away if the virus were to arrive in New Zealand.
“Growers are already struggling with the energy costs and the additional impact of a virus of this nature,” O’Neil said.
“I think it would mean a number of our growers would just close down, and that’s exactly what we don’t need or want to be happening.
“We need to be more sufficient in supplying food, especially vegetables, to the New Zealand population.”
He said when New Zealand had previously dealt with problems with viruses in exports, exports from New Zealand had been suspended.
“When there is a problem, the exports from New Zealand are suspended and they were suspended for a number of years while we dealt with a different virus in New Zealand like the pepino mosaic virus.
“We believe the Australians would have closed down our exports straight away and waited for MPI to report back to them as to what the situation is; now we understand the Australian authorities are likely to report back to MPI in the next couple of days.”
O’Neil said the tomato industry was a $130 million industry in New Zealand.
“We currently have imports of tomatoes coming to New Zealand, especially in winter when prices are high, and for instance over the last month, about 130 tonnes of Australian tomatoes have come across the Tasman to New Zealand.”
There will be more supply of New Zealand tomatoes from September onwards.
“Very shortly, we will be getting into warmer weather, longer sunlight hours, so our production will increase in New Zealand; I would expect from September onwards, we’ll have increasing volumes of New Zealand tomatoes in our shops and prices will start to come down.”
He said plan A for tomato growers was to keep the virus out of New Zealand through strict hygiene.
“Any country that’s had this virus hasn’t been able to eradicate it, it’s so infectious.
“We’re obviously seeking that all the growers have very strict hygiene practices, so stopping anyone coming into their houses, their growing houses other than their staff, but giving staff clean clothes that they can use, stopping any personal material going on like cellphones, etc.
“For most countries that have had this virus, those practices may have slowed the spread, but they ultimately won’t stop it.”
– RNZ
