Buy fruit and help growers

• Published date: 18 April 2024
• Publication title: Northern Advocate, The (Whangarei, New Zealand)

The New Zealand Feijoa Growers Association said fruit from Gisborne was usually picked earlier, so growers there enjoyed higher prices before fruit from the rest of the country came on to the market

But this year, the fruit had all come at the same time, pushing down the price growers were paid by $1/kg.

“At that price, growers will struggle to make a profit this season,” a spokesperson said.

Brent Fuller, who grows five hectares of feijoas near Napier, said he was only just covering costs.

“At the beginning of the season you make money but it kind of tapers off, that’s just happened quickly this year so we’ll slow down the harvest now.

“With crops, in any farming or horticultural work, you have ups and downs and the price fluctuates — probably not as much as this year, but again that’s just the market.”

Fuller said it was great to be harvesting again as last year three metres of floodwater destroyed his entire crop during Cyclone Gabrielle.

He said...