Pipfruit New Zealand Inc. today formally signaled the commitment of the pipfruit sector to better biosecurity by signing the Deed that governs the Government Industry Agreement for Biosecurity Readiness and Response (GIA). This follows an extensive consultation process within the pipfruit sector and a grower vote on sector participation in GIA.

“We are committed to working with government to deliver the best biosecurity outcomes that we can to protect our growing pipfruit sector”, says Alan Pollard, Chief Executive of Pipfruit NZ Inc, the industry body that represents all apple and pear growers in New Zealand.

 “Our view is that industry sectors such as ours have little choice but to sign the Deed”, says Pollard. “Unless we do so we can have little or no say in readiness nor any meaningful leadership role in the event of a response being initiated – it is better to be around the table so that we can provide the leadership required on behalf of our industry, and can help to influence and shape future biosecurity programmes”.

Pollard says that while signing of the Deed is significant, the real work is in developing operational agreements for each pest of major concern. These operational agreements set out how readiness and response is managed, by whom and how the costs are shared. “Our first operational agreement is to cover fruit flies of significance”, says Pollard. “It is fair to say that we have a lot of work to do to get an agreement on the detail that makes up this operational agreement”.

The pipfruit sector is the second largest horticulture fresh fruit sector in New Zealand behind kiwifruit, accounting for over $500m in export sales in 2013.