Fund calls for innovators to find solutions that drive meaningful decarbonisation and enhance orchard productivity
Zespri has announced it will reaffirm its US$2mn investment to its Innovation Fund, Zag, for a second year.
This year the kiwifruit marketer is looking to rally innovators and pioneers to strengthen climate resilience across food systems and help create solutions that advance productivity and carbon-positive practices relevant to kiwifruit. Since its launch in November 2023, Zag has received more than 100 submissions from more than 15 countries, with 11 submissions moving into pilot programmes.
Zag pilots have to date explored a variety of sustainability efforts, including the use of biochar on kiwifruit orchards to increase orchard productivity while reducing emissions, technology which analyses the unique chemical signatures emitted by fruit to support planning around kiwifruit harvesting and the use of microwave sensing technology as a non-destructive method for quality assessment of kiwifruit without waste.
“We’ve had a really positive first year with Zag,” said Jiunn Shih, Zespri chief marketing, innovation and sustainability Officer. “It’s helped connect us with innovative problem solvers from around the world to address key challenges our industry faces as we meet the growing demand for kiwifruit, but this is just the beginning.”
For year two, Shih said Zag would increase its focus on strengthening climate resilience and solutions that would help grow a more sustainable future.”
“We’ll also be refreshing the focus of Zag every quarter, initially prioritising climate resilience as part of our pledge to work with partners to be carbon positive by 2035, and then looking at other priorities,” Shih explained.
As part of the industry’s focus on climate resilience, Zag is expected to include solutions to help grow better kiwifruit while nurturing soil health by improving water retention, biodiversity and carbon storage to support growers, enhance orchard resilience and safeguard productivity while growing sustainably.
