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Fresh Tomato Product Group report for September 2009

2009-09-17

Tony Ivicevich retires as Chairman of the Product Group

Tony officially retired as Chairman at the AGM on 21 July after 11 years service. All Fresh Tomato Growers should appreciate Tony's time at the helm of the Product Group.  He dedicated a huge amount of effort and energy and his knowledge, expertise and industry intelligence served the Industry extremely well over the last 11 years.

 

Wim Zwart elected new Chair and Frank van Rijen elected new Vice Chair

The Product Group's Vice Chair and long serving committee member Wim Zwart from Gisborne has taken over the reins from Tony. Wim was elected unopposed at Conference. Wim has been on the committee since 1990, with a break from 1994 – 1997, and been Vice Chair since 2002. His experience and style will make the transition seamless and see the Product Group in very good hands for the foreseeable future.

 

The new Vice Chair is Frank van Rijen from Waikato. Frank has stepped up to the plate and volunteered to get much more involved in the Industry's affairs at a very busy time for himself and his business.

 

Greenhouse whitefly factsheets 1- 4, 2009

The Product Group has been involved since 2007 in a MAF Sustainable Farming Fund Project for the development of a series of factsheets to “Document new procedures for Whitefly Control (in New Zealand Greenhouses under Integrated Crop Management practices)”. 

The aim was to identify the latest available information from around the world and from within New Zealand on the management and control of greenhouse whitefly and to produce it in a series of four easy to read factsheets. The project has not been without its difficulties and has had a new provider since early 2008. A team of five industry consultants led by a contracted technical publications specialist have been working on the project for the past eighteen months.  This is quite a long time frame but the team members all have real jobs plus many varying opinions on the information that growers need about greenhouse whitefly management and control.

This project is now finally complete and the set of four factsheets have been distributed directly to all our known fresh tomato growers.

The four whitefly factsheets titles are:

1.      Identification and biology

2.      Natural enemies

3.      Integrated pest management

4.      Spray options

 

I want to acknowledge and thank the project team members; i.e. Pete Smith, Education Solutions and ES Design; Roelf Schreuder, previously with Rijk Zwaan; John Thompson, Bioforce; Stephen McKennie, Horticentre and Terril Marais, Zonda Resources.  Bruce Chapman, Insect Science; provided the final overseeing of technical data and proof reading. The Industry also thanks and acknowledges the financial support from MAF’s Sustainable Farming Fund.

The Product Group Committee hopes that tomato growers will find the information provided in these factsheets useful to their growing business. Extra copies of the individual factsheets are available on request. Please contact either Jeanette or Kate on 0508 467 869. They are also available on www.tomatoesnz.co.nz under Research/General Reports.

 

Imports

To the end of June 2009; i.e. for the period May and June, 356,676 kgs of tomatoes with a CIF value of $1,196,903 had been imported from Queensland.

 

Compare this to the end of June last year when the volume was (a staggering) 1,250,347 kgs with a CIF value of $3.78 million.

 

Exports

At the time of writing at the end of August there has still not been an official announcement made by Biosecurity Australia on the final outcomes from its Pest Risk Analysis for the Tomato/Tomato Psyllid and Candidatus Liberibacter. The draft PRA for submissions was released in early May and submissions closed at the end of June.

 

In mid August MAFBNZ said it believed that Australia was on track to complete the Pest Risk Analysis in September.  With the start of the next export season looming we await the outcome with bated breath and the hope that Industry does not have to revert to last seasons’ emergency measures. They worked very well but were time consuming and expensive while imposing some unnecessary conditions on loose tomatoes without the calyx.

 

The following export figures for tomatoes and capsicums for last season may be of interest. To my knowledge there was not a single psyllid interception.

 

Tomatoes - To Australia Dec 08 – Apr 09: 1,376,391 kgs. Capsicums - To Japan Sep 08 – May 09: 3,674,932 kgs and to Australia Dec 08 – May 09: 909,848 kgs. Total 5,961,171 kgs; i.e. almost 6,000 tonnes exported without an incident.

 

This clearly indicates that the growers and exporters achieved what they said they would; i.e. total control of the psyllid prior to export inspections.

 

Industry also needs to acknowledge and thank the people involved from the IVA AsureQuality for their hard work and dedication through this different export season. And none of the shipments would have got away under the preclearance regime without the very professional approach taken by the Australian Quarantine Inspection Service officers stationed here in NZ.