The lack of an export permit is apparently not slowing down New Zealand agribusiness group Turners & Growers in its quest to turn the country into the Southern Hemisphere production hub for its proprietary ENZARed kiwifruit variety.
Following a recent New Zealand grower visit to Chinese ENZARed orchards sponsored by Turners & Growers (T&G), the company has said it is forging ahead with plans to increase plantings of the variety in New Zealand.
T&G claimed the variety could be worth as much to New Zealand growers as Zespri Gold – around NZ$250m annually.
The lack of a collaborative marketing arrangement with industry regulator Kiwifruit New Zealand (KNZ), required to export kiwifruit outside of the Zespri single-desk system, would initially appear a rather large hurdle to that goal, but T&G’s managing director Jeff Wesley claimed the current regulations would not be a problem in future.
“There are no current permits for ENZARed and no discussions have taken place with KNZ on any permits for ENZARed,” he told Fruitnet.com.
“We are confident that before significant commercial volumes are in production here, the property rights of kiwifruit variety owners will be restored and New Zealand growers won’t be denied the benefit to the industry that the export of this fruit will bring.”
The current single-desk Zespri model, however, hasattracted vocal supportfrom New Zealand’s Prime Minister and opposition party this year, as well as defeating a legal challengemounted by Turners & Growers in August.
Mr Wesley’s comments came on the back of a visit to Cangxi in China’s Sichuan Province to study production of the ENZARed variety there, attended by a number of the company’s New Zealand growers.
The growers say production of the red-fleshed variety in China was impressive, but growing conditions in New Zealand could see the variety really take off.
“On our growing systems the fruit will only improve in New Zealand,” said Te Puke-based grower Dave Marshall. “This is too good a fruit for New Zealand growers to miss out on.”
T&G said the market demand for the variety was potentially “immense”, and had received significant interest at the ASIA FRUIT LOGISTICA trade show in September.
A sport of the Chinese variety Hongyang, T&G obtained the global commercialisation rights to ENZARed in 2007. From its Chinese production, the company’s subsidiary Enza expects to market 400 tonnes of the variety in China and 60 tonnes in Europe this year. T&G plans to increase production in China to 10,000 tonnes within the next four years.
The company is undertaking large-scale propagation of the variety in New Zealand, and will be making planting material available to growers in 2011 over the Southern Hemisphere winter.
In other news from Turners & Growers, the company will be investing NZ$4-5m over the next two years to build a fruit processing factory beside its existing juice concentrate facility in Hastings.
Mr Wesley told Fruitnet.com the new factory would process class two produce, and compliment an existing plant in Nelson, which is running at capacity.
