BULLETINS
& ARTICLES
New Zealand
Tomato Sector Report - April 2005
Executive officer: Ken Robertson
Article reproduced with permission
of David Peterson and Peter Cooper, Vegfed NZ
For the first time tomatoes are ranked No.1 in
Statistics New Zealand Ranking of Household Expenditure on the top 30 fresh
vegetables for the 12 months ending 30 June 2004.
Tomatoes normally take second place to potatoes
but the results of the Household Economic Survey just out show that tomatoes
have moved into No. 1 slot with an aggregate annual expenditure by all
private households in New Zealand of almost $90 million. Potatoes
have dropped down to second place with an expenditure of almost $82 million.
Mushrooms are in the distant third place with an expenditure of just over
$37 million. The other 7 vegetables in the top 10 are carrots, broccoli,
lettuce, kumara, onions, capsicums and cucumber.
The Household Economic Survey is a survey of private
households living in permanent private dwellings. This means that
the survey does not include overseas visitors, people living in hotels
and similar type accommodation, old people’s homes, patients in hospitals
and most importantly, the Food Service Industry is not included in these
figures.
Overall. The aggregate annual expenditure by all
private households on fresh vegetables is almost $622 million.
The percentage of households reporting expenditure
on fresh tomatoes ranges from 36% in the annual gross income bracket of
$16,000-$23,000 up to 65% in the annual gross income bracket of $120,000
and over. For the average annual gross income bands between $37,000
and $72,000 the percentages range from 44% to 53%.
The average weekly expenditure per household in
the average annual gross income brackets ranges from 97c through to $1.20.
(These figures probably indicate that on average, New Zealand households
purchase tomatoes in small quantities or once every fortnight).
This survey is the first conducted for 3 years,
i.e. since the year ended June 2001. The fact that tomatoes have
now reached the top of the list may be a reflection of the much greater
range (and consumption) of specialty tomatoes now in the domestic market-place.
FRESH TOMATO EXPORTS
Fresh tomato exports for January 2005 were 606,570
kilograms with an FOB value of almost $1.5 million. In comparison
the figures for January 2004 were 275,046 kilograms with an FOB value of
$1.02 million. Of the 606,570 kilograms exported, 509,332kgs went
to Australia, followed by 80,873kgs to Japan, with Fiji in a very distant
third place at 5,402kgs.
End of year figures for the year ending December
2004 show that almost 2 million kilograms were exported for an FOB value
of $7.4 million.
CLIMATE CHANGE, THAT CARBON TAX AND NEGOTIATED
GREENHOUSE AGREEMENT REVIEW.
In recent months the Ministry for the Environment’s
Climate Change Office has been conducting a focused and some might say
a hasty review of the Government’s Negotiated Greenhouse Agreement Policy.
It seems that lack of progress with Negotiated Greenhouse Agreements (NGA’s)
over the previous 2 years, where only two have been awarded, has seen the
Climate Change Office (CCO) turn up the heat on a review process and provision
of a new policy for approval by Government.
CCO has held consultation meetings with industry
in Wellington and Auckland in early February and again in Wellington in
early March. Vegfed staff and growers from the Federation’s Covered
Crops Climate Change Working Group have attended these meetings and also
had the benefit of an individual briefing from a CCO official.
This review of the NGA policy is designed to enable
many more businesses in New Zealand to meet the eligibility criteria for
an NGA and where the NGA will be based on meeting World’s Best Practice
and following a targeted pathway of energy efficiency during the first
commitment period of the Kyoto Protocol 2007-2012.
We believe that many greenhouse cropping businesses
will be eligible under the revised NGA policy by virtue of their intensive
use of energy. Two of the criteria are either energy cost being 20%
of operating costs of the Carbon Tax itself impacting at 10% of EBIT (earnings
before interest and tax).
If this does turn out to be the case, individual
greenhouse businesses will have to prove their eligibility, be assessed
by CCO, have a consultant undertake a World’s Best Practice study and pass
a validated review. All of this will be incredibly expensive and
time-consuming. With one or two exceptions, the industry is too diverse
(and small) so it needs to be able to group together to warrant the costs
involved in application and monitoring.
Via the consultation process, we have heard once
that “industry clusters/industries that are similar can work together”,
but only the once so far. We have also heard that “this NGA review
is about many more businesses being able to achieve large tax deductions
(as a result of the Carbon Tax)”. However, this approach gives no
recognition to the fact that it is the businesses themselves that have
to make the capital investments to meet World’s Best Practice, have to
become more energy efficient and in the first place have to weather the
storm of the Government imposed Carbon Tax.
We see two hurdles remaining for the greenhouse
horticulture sector, namely: Time and expense and the consultants not being
able to relate World’s Best Practice to New Zealand conditions. We
see World’s Best practice as probably being another “New Zealand-based
World First.”
Under this new review, we have only once seen specific
mention of and support for the New Zealand greenhouse horticulture sector
being able to work through at least the initial NGA process, as an industry
group. There will apparently be no ability to recognise the benefits
of the New Zealand situation or to factor in the uniqueness of New Zealand
as a measure of World’s Best Practice.
World’s Best practice cannot be properly defined
and monitored when the New Zealand context cannot be applied by applicants
or it is not factored in by the World’s best Practice consultants – whoever
they may be.
ANTIBIOTIC USE IN HORTICULTURE
Antibiotic use in horticulture is very limited,
with the only antibiotic currently registered being Streptomycin for the
control of certain bacterial diseases in pipfruit, stonefruit and on tomato
seedlings.
The Antibiotic Resistance Expert panel has been
convened by the New Zealand Food Safety Authority to consider the implications
of antibiotic use in agriculture, on resistance to antibiotics in human
pathogens. The primary focus of the Panel is the use of antibiotics
in animal feed and in other veterinary applications, however use in horticulture
is also being considered.
The Panel has asked the relevant horticulture sectors
what the implications would be if the use of Streptomycin was to be discontinued,
phased out or a form of licensing control be imposed.
The Fresh Tomato Sector has informed the Panel
that significant changes in grower and nursery practices over the past
10 years has seen the use of Streptomycin basically disappear altogether
as a bacterial control in a nursery situation for tomato seedlings.
Even if that weren’t the case, Streptomycin has only ever been used on
tomato seedlings prior to them being transplanted out. We have seen
no justification for this to be a potential avenue for resistance to antibiotics
in human pathogens.
Without the appropriate substantiation, the Fresh
Tomato Sector has advised the Panel that it would not like to see Streptomycin
discontinued or phased out. This is on the basis that there needs
to be some sound scientifically researched reason why a product should
be discontinued or phased out. The Sector does accept that with further
information and debate, the licensing of purchasers and their operation
under a regime of Best Management Practice via a Code of Practice may be
acceptable.
GROWERS URGED TO UNDERSTAND THE FUTURE
Here are some key points that may sound familiar,
from an address to the Horticulture in Focus event in the UK at the end
of February:
“Problems are piling up for growers. Costs
are increasing as prices are forced lower, there are environmental and
political pressures, more regulation and globalisation.”
“Horticulture was not a special case.
Like other businesses it had to understand the consumer. They were
becoming more aware and knowledgeable and expressing their individuality
which was being reflected in the growth in niche brands.”
