Kiwifruit industry in New Zealand

Today New Zealand is the third largest kiwifruit producing country, next to China and Italy,[1] and holds approximately 30% of the market share.

MacLoughlin's truck was commandeered for army use during the outbreak of war and as a result, he was forced to sell his property and enter into a shared cropping arrangement with another farmer.

[5] Due to pioneering research into the transportability of the fruit by John Pilkington Hudson and others at the agriculture department in Wellington, this was the first international export of the kiwifruit.

To regain profitability and stability, the New Zealand Government and growers colluded to establish a single-desk export arrangement.

This granted a monopoly on the marketing of kiwifruit to Zespri and mandated that all suppliers sell their products through this single buyer (see also monopsony) for all exports outside of Australasia.

However, in October 2011 the case was dropped in response to pressures from a new bacterial disease causing devastating losses in kiwifruit.

actinidiae (PSA), a variant of the bacterium Pseudomonas syringae, were present in a Bay of Plenty kiwifruit orchard in the North Island.

These measures were continued in 2011, but were largely unsuccessful with most orchards in the Bay of Plenty displaying some level of infection by November 2011.

[22] Much of the breeding to refine the green kiwifruit and develop the gold Zespri was done by the Plant & Food Research Institute (formerly HortResearch) during the decades of 1970–1999.

[25] In mid-February 2020, the New Zealand Government agreed to pay NZ$40 million to 212 kiwifruit orchardists and Te Puke–based post harvest operator Seeka to settle a class action lawsuit alleging that the government was liable for losses caused by the incursion of Pseudomonas, which swept through the Bay of Plenty region in 2010.

[28] The kiwifruit vine has become an invasive plant species in the Bay of Plenty Region due initially to the dumping of fruit next to bush remnants.

[29] The Department of Conservation, responsible for protecting public land, classify Actinidia deliciosa as an environmental weed.