Apple growers fight over Aussie access

Rival apple growers face off today at the Pipfruit New Zealand annual meeting in Havelock North over advanced plans by large growers to impose regulations on exports to the long-closed Australian market.

Agriculture Minister David Carter already has Cabinet approval to regulate for Australian apples to be covered by the Horticultural Export Authority, which has market powers over other exports, including avocadoes and squash.

But a band of smaller growers, assisted by industry consultant and Act Party candidate John Thompson, is challenging what they say is too much speed and lack of consultation that could see the HEA regulations passed through Parliament within days.

While the HEA is a long way short of the "single desk" export monopoly enjoyed by kiwifruit exporter Zespri, smaller growers are complaining they are being steamrollered by larger growers, since voting power at Pipfruit NZ is determined by apple production volumes rather than "one grower, one vote".

Meanwhile, Pipfruit NZ has been lobbying Members of Parliament to support the addition of a Supplementary Order Paper to the Statutes Amendment Bill (No 2) currently at second reading stage in Parliament.

"If the amending legislation is passed and the industry supports the HEA option, it can be in place for 2012," Pipfruit NZ chair Ian Palmer said in a recent letter to MPs. Opposition from just one MP would be enough to stop the SOP being attached to the Bill, and Thompson’s group is pressuring Act’s parliamentary leader, John Boscawen, to block it.

That would almost certainly push an HEA decision beyond the election, too late for the first season that Australia will allow New Zealand apple imports after a century-long battle against Australian protectionism, based on fear of the apple disease fireblight.  New Zealand took Australia to the World Trade Organisation and won the right to export apples across the Tasman.

Major growers, however, fear the impact of the rearguard action on the local apple industry, which has struggled for profitability since deregulation 10 years ago.

"They are in danger of destroying the biggest opportunity for the industry in 50 years," said Alandale Orchards owner John McCliskie, a former director of ENZA, the one-time "single desk" seller of New Zealand apples offshore.

The HEA proposal was "not single desk at all", but a way to ensure "an industry plan to access markets with multiple sellers" while ensuring coordinated marketing and quality standards were applied.

"They will stuff up the Australian market if they all jump on the next plane with a whole lot of fruit that’s not wanted or understood by the market over there," McCliskie said.

Thompson and his supporters argue the HEA arrangements have not worked well for other horticultural exports, and that they add a layer of cost for insufficient commercial gain, especially for growers who have succeeded in finding in their own markets.

"HEA just adds costs and bureaucratic red tape that is unnecessary and brings no obvious or guaranteed benefits," said Paul Dellabarca, an exporter claiming to handle 12 per cent of total New Zealand apple exports.

McCliskie attacked Thompson as "just an exporter" who owned no orchards himself and was therefore unconcerned by the "crisis" in the industry.

"I’m tired of people who don’t have skin in the game determining the future for those who do."

Dellabarca said many larger growers were locked into lower value apple varieties, while many smaller growers were profiting by growing new varieties and finding market niches for themselves offshore.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/farming/5381421/Apple-growers-fight-over-Aussie-access?