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Carrots, vegetables - Source: ONE News -
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Horticulture leaders have launched an industry strategy to double the sector's economic value to $10 billion over the next decade.
The strategy was launched at the Horticulture New Zealand annual conference in Christchurch by the organisation's president, Andrew Fenton.
The nation's horticulture industry - which earned $2.2 billion in the domestic market last year, and another $2 billion in exports - must grow if it is to survive, Fenton told the conference.
He said the industry needed to develop its international competitiveness in key markets, develop niche products for premium markets, encourage sustainability through the entire supply chain, and develop highly qualified and experienced leaders.
Fenton said the strategy was the most significant work done for the fruit and vegetable industry in recent years.
Change needed
The strategy targets a "vision" of winning recognition for the sector as a significant contributor to export earnings and a viable and sustainable industry.
It was complied by an advisory team from Deloittes, which said the industry could not continue doing what it had always done and expect to keep on growing.
Significant growth will require changes in behaviour and attitude.
"At it simplest level, other New Zealanders are not the competition - offshore producers are," the strategy said.
Industry growth will be export-led, and supported by value-add products and processes developed, commercialised and controlled from New Zealand.
And a "New Zealand story" will need to be developed with Tourism New Zealand to identify quality and cultural attributes that can create a point of difference in overseas markets.
Growers were told the industry already had pockets of genuine global competitiveness through control of plant varietal rights, and counter-seasonal supply to the affluent northern hemisphere markets.
But with the exception of Zespri kiwifruit - particularly its gold cultivar - New Zealand growers have no real leverage with the big supermarket chains that dominate these markets.
Growers need to dominate categories through intellectual property controlling produce with novelty value or compounds with specific health benefits.
Better commercialising plant variety rights will require a much better relationship between the industry and the science sector.
And grower will have to unilaterally raise the bar for sustainability and ethical production to the point where they "own" the concepts.
These things will need development of leaders in farming, commercial negotiation, science and food technology, and improvements in productivity.
