Conference Programme

3.00pm           

Delegate registration  |  Afternoon Tea
 

4.00pm              

Annual General Meeting, New Zealand Apples & Pears Incorporated
 

5:30pm   
          

Welcome Reception 
 

7.00pm  

End

Tuesday 30 July

8.30am     

Welcome

MC Introduction and housekeeping

Principal Sponsor Address:
Mark Piper, CEO, Plant & Food Research

Keynote speaker
 

9:30am

SESSION 1
RESET: How we move forward from the current landscape

Making the strategy real!
Karen Morrish, CEO, NZAPI

Following the 2023 strategic review, a high level look at how NZAPI will shape it’s service delivery going forward, to enable industry to do what it does best, in times of reset, growth and ambition.

10.05am

Economic update
Cameron Bagrie, Bagrie Economics
 

10.30am  

Morning Tea

11:15am

Geopolitical / trade update
 

11.45am

Advocating in 2024: Being heard and influencing the things that matter
GJ Thompson, Director, Thompson Lewis

Being heard in 2024 is more complex than ever before, but the fundamentals of communication and advocacy remain the same:

• Be clear about your strategy, objectives, and messages.
• Relentlessly execute your plan, but don’t mistake activity for progress.
• Be prepared to adapt your plan to ensure success.
• Top down/bottom-up engagement is always best to build support. 

GJ’s presentation will look at how best to advocate in 2024 – the do’s, don’ts and watchouts he’s learnt after more than 20 years working on challenging issues and advocating for organisations large and small.

SESSION 2
CHALLENGES: Adapting to moving goalposts

12.15pm

12.30pm

RSE – developing a robust scheme meeting all stakeholder needs
Ian Palmer, Chair, National Labour Governance Group

RSE has continued to be a cornerstone of the pipfruit sector. With the scheme now 17 seasons in, is it fit for purpose in the post Covid world, and do we meet the needs of all involved?  The National Labour Governance Group has been reformed to assist our horticultural sector to work in the RSE space. What is our role?

Grower Panel

Will discuss labour challenges and suggest solutions.

Lunch

2pm

Moving goalposts and managing crises, a grower's view on paddling up shit creek
Natalya Egan, Gisborne Grower

Cyclone Gabrielle and its impacts have quite rightly captured the attention of our industry and the wider community - part of this presentation will be sharing the results of a review conducted by PFR on the effectiveness NZAPI’s response to that crisis.   Cyclones aside, growers have had, and will continue to have, a range of crises that effect their business and Natalya will be discussing her experience of managing moving goal posts and responding to a multitude of crises as a Gisborne grower.

2.25pm

2.45pm

Industry in a biosecurity response
Andrew Sander, Response Manager, Incident Management Team, Biosecurity NZ

In 2015 and 2019, New Zealand once again saw the presence of a Queensland Fruit Fly in traps in Auckland. While in 2015 Industry involvement in the field was minor, the 2019 response involved our industry partners having an involvement from governance through to the field work in many various roles. This presentation will offer an insight into how Fruit Fly Responses have evolved from the 2015 response to 2019 and how industry can continue to develop their own capacity to respond to any biosecurity response in the future. A focus will be on the management of the response using the Coordinated Incident Management System and how industry can use this to develop their own skills and capacity.

SESSION 3
GROWTH: Supporting our industry ambition 

Productivity
 

Wednesday 31 July

SESSION 3
GROWTH: Supporting our industry ambition (cont)

Building trust is everyone's responsibility
Penny Clark-Hall, Founder & Chief Executive, Social Licence Consulting

The business community plays a pivotal role in leading systemic solutions to not just our local challenges but global ones. Building trust among a broad range of stakeholders allows collaboration to happen at pace which means - transformation and innovation #solutions. 

It’s time to take accountability for the role we all play in building trust in our business and industry. We are only as strong as our weakest link.

9.25am

Climate Resilience

1. Using data and science to assess and build business resilience to climate risk. What can we do, what’s the benefits and how do we apply it?
2. How can we influence national policy to build climate resilience? What are the policies that have an impact, what do we want to influence, what outcomes do we want to achieve?

SESSION 4
FUTURE: Unlocking opportunities for all

Business succession
Todd Charteris, NZ CEO, Rabobank

11.10am

The future of advanced breeding

1. MBIE will provide an overview of the reform review, what concerns and opportunities they have found discussing with industry, what they are considering in the review.
2. Tony Martin, CEO, Prevar 
   What we should know about advanced breeding. 
   The discussion around advanced breeding technologies (including gene editing and null segregants) is challenging our knowledge and perceptions. Is the New Zealand industry ready for change?  Fresh off a visit to North America, Tony will share his non-scientific version of what we should know about the technology and some of the applications for New Zealand.
3. An organic perspective.
4. Denise Conroy, Principal Scientist and Team leader Stakeholder & Consumer Research, Plant and Food Research
   Social science perspectives on new technologies.  
   The PFR team has guided Focus Groups in several markets (domestic and overseas) and conducted an eight-country survey considering consumer and stakeholder attitudes towards new food technologies including Closed Environment Agriculture, Robotics & Automation, and GE.  These rich and deep insights will be shared.

12pm

Reimagining the future of our orchards
Louise Nash, Founder & CEO of Circularity

Last year Circularity worked with NZAPI to deliver the vision and concept 'Future Focused Orchards'.  This was developed by partnering with local growers, leaders across the global food system, and local iwi/hapu to co- design an industry vision that explores key practices and opportunities for redesign to deliver ecosystem health, reduce harm, and deliver prosperity to the industry; improving environmental, social and economic outcomes. 
In this session, Louise Nash will introduce the vision and concept, followed by a grower panel (incl. Louise) that will share with us what they see as important, what is already happening, and what still needs to be done.