The debate over the New Zealand kiwifruit industry's single-desk export system has rumbled on this week, with Turners & Growers (T&G) releasing a report entitled 'How good a job is Zespri actually doing?'.
The 40-page document, which appears on the group's 'Time for a change' website dedicated to reforming the country's kiwifruit industry, is an analysis of Zespri's performance, according to a covering letter by T&G chairman Tony Gibbs.
In the report, T&G states that Zespri has an incentive to keep its fruit payments to growers low in order to increase shareholder profits.
'Zespri does not have the same incentive to keep its other costs low as it would if it had competitors,' T&G says in the report. 'Zespri can pay growers whatever price Zespri chooses, because no-one is allowed to offer a higher price.
'Zespri has never given growers any evidence to support Zespri’s claim that growers are better off with a monopoly,' the report continues. 'Turners & Growers asked Zespri for the evidence. Zespri replied that it has no reports, surveys or analyses regarding the costs or benefits flowing from Zespri’s monopoly.'
The report claims that the single-desk system stunts innovation and that it was only brought in as a temporary solution in the first place.
'Zespri’s performance is unimpressive. Production has increased but orchard gate returns
and profit have fallen,' the report adds. 'If Zespri is as good as it says, why is Zespri afraid of competition?'
T&G's report is the latest in a number of recent moves to draw attention to the possibility of altering the existing export system.
In July, the company served Zespri with a writ, citing a range ofcomplaints including Zespri’s alleged attempt to monopolise theAustralian market for New Zealand kiwifruit, anti-competitive behaviourand the sale of foreign-grown kiwifruit under the Zespri label, whichT&G says contravenes New Zealand’s Kiwifruit Export Regulations1999.
Zespri CEO Lain Jager hit back, saying the lawsuit was an unfocusedpublicity stunt. “At the same time they served us, they sent out pressreleases to everyone,” he told Fruitnet.com. “Obviously the publicity is part of their campaign to destabiliseand deregulate the industry. It seems they’re suingeveryone about everything. It’s a scattergun approach.”
At the end of August, Tony Gibbs sent growers and industry members a presentationurging them to voice their opinions on the single-desk system.
Mr Gibbs said in the presentation that growers needed to protectthe future of orchardists growing green cultivars, following Zespriforecasts predicting that average green kiwifruit returns would fallNZ$0.26 in 2009/10.
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