Kiwifruit growers had been having a difficult season anyway, according to a leading Māori grower, but he said he had trust in their resilience to recover from Cycle Gabrielle.
Anaru Timutimu (Tūhoe, Tauranga Moana) chairs Māori Kiwifruit Growers Incorporated and is a shareholder in the largest Māori kiwifruit operation in the country, the Ngāi Tukairangi Trust based in Tauranga.
He says kiwifruit orchards were hit by hard frosts in September last year, which has already shrunk this season’s crop. That crop was coming up for harvest next month before the cyclone hit this week.
Māori-owned kiwifruit orchards produce almost 14 million trays of kiwifruit annually or about 10% of New Zealand’s total kiwi exports. Kiwifruit is a $2 billion export industry, which has had some challenging seasons due to Covid-19, previous weather events and a labour shortage.”
Resilient growers
But he said the kiwifruit industry had been “a bit of a darling” for New Zealand given those figures.
Yesterday, when he talked to teaomaori.news, he had yet to hear how growers in Gisborne and Hawke's Bay had fared because cellphone coverage was down in those areas. He said the Bay of Plenty had been "not so bad" but Northland had been hit hard by the atmospheric river flood the week before
“Our major concern first and foremost is with those communities that are adversely affected by this weather event, not just our workers but also our Māori communities that support kiwifruit.
But he said he had watched a TV interview yesterday with a kiwifruit grower from Te Karaka (a township near Gisborne that was flooded extensively) whose sister was standing beside him crying over the devastation.
“At the end of the item, he said: ‘Oh, well, we’ll start again’ and that just showed the resilience not only of Māori communities but also reflects Māori businesses and when we talk about being long-term players in business and agriculture in New Zealand that’s what we are about, a group that is pretty resilient and we will continue on.”
He said the cyclone was an act of god to some extent. ”What’s worrying is if this becomes a pattern. People in the North Island didn’t have a great summer so I would worry if because of climate change this were to happen again.”