Farming News - Disease decimating kiwifruit orchards
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Disease decimating kiwifruit orchards
New Zealand's agriculture ministry has conceded it probably will not be able to eradicate a disease affecting the country's billion-dollar kiwifruit industry.
The vine bacteria PSA has now been discovered in growing areas outside of the Bay of Plenty.
The Agriculture Ministry says two orchards around Hawkes Bay now have confirmed cases of PSA.
The properties are about 200 kilometres south of the Bay of Plenty, where the disease was discovered for the first time in the country a week-and-a-half ago.
A total of 28 orchards have the disease and tests are being carried out on another 240, roughly 10% of New Zealand's kiwifruit orchards.
"MAF and industry is accepting that eradication is looking very, very difficult," Carter told a press conference at parliament.
"The industry has presented a very compelling case for government assistance."
But the minister declined to give estimates of costs, or the likely taxpayer funding involved.
"I will meet with the prime minister and the deputy prime minister later on this evening to try and get their opinion as to whether we can assist this industry," he said.
Prime Minister John Key and his cabinet ministers were "very aware" kiwifruit was an important export earner, and that the industry needed help to develop ways to best manage the bacteria.
Carter said authorities were now dealing with infestation in the Motueka-Golden Bay area, Napier and Whakatane which made the possibility of eradication extremely slim ... "what we now need to do is aggressively contain it".
The industry faces two key problems: paying for "aggressive containment" of the bacteria on orchards, and the likelihood that next season growers who lose vines to the disease this summer will suffer big drops in their budgeted cashflows.
Carter said that so far no customer countries had sought to ban imports of New Zealand kiwifruit on the grounds that they might spread the bacteria.
"The science is very clear that this disease is not transmitted via the fruit itself," he said.
PSA has not cut fruit exports, but Australia and the US have banned the import of kiwifruit plant cuttings from New Zealand.
The industry is still trying to determine if the disease was caused by infected pollen, contaminated root stock or whether it was brought on by weather conditions.