Convert becomes organic evangelist

By ROSALIE SMITH

David Church checks out this season's kiwifruit. On the ground is a reflective cloth, on trial in the industry, designed to improve the ripening process.

One man more than any other has made kiwifruit New Zealand's most valuable organic export, worth $22 million last season.

Tauranga's David Church has evangelised the organic philosophy with missionary zeal since he was converted in 1992.

This season, the packhouse in which he is a partner, Centrepac, will turn out about 1.2 million trays of organic kiwifruit, 40 per cent of the national crop.

His change of heart came in 1992 when he was advising a couple, back in New Zealand from Switzerland, on the spray programme for their newly bought orchard. He was talking about applying organophosphates every few weeks for months.

"They said they wouldn't do that," Mr Church said. "They said there must be a better way. They looked at other options and I became genuinely interested. At the time our whole industry was beginning to move to integrated pest management and fewer toxic sprays and this gave us confidence to consider change. I decided to convert my own orchard."

Mr Church said his one condition was that a discussion group be set up to exchange ideas on organic kiwifruit and that proved to be the nucleus of a new direction for the industry.

Initially 10 growers were interested. Now Centrepac has 85 Biogro registered growers and there are 175 in the industry. Discussion groups are an integral part of organic production, experienced growers supporting novices and everyone learning from each other.

"The other partners in the packhouse looked sideways at first but have since converted to organic, having seen it was practical and had potential," Mr Church said.

Indeed, over recent years organic kiwifruit have enjoyed a $2 to $3 premium over conventionally grown fruit, a substantial sum when conventional growers have received from $4.50 to $7.50 a tray.

But last year the organic margin dropped less than 40c a tray.

Mr Church said organic fruit was smaller on average and too much of it was held in coolstore to be sold at the end of the season because it historically stored better and for longer. But this added to the costs.

This season, he reckons, a good premium should be restored. "A marketing plan for organic fruit is in place; speciality health shops will be targeted for better returns; the fruit will be exported earlier and will not be sold as late season conventional fruit. And the fruit profile is much larger which makes it more valuable."

Warm winters have made organic growing more difficult and some growers have been discouraged by the low returns from last season. For a man with Mr Church's enthusiasm this is a great disappointment. He cannot understand why any grower would turn away from natural growing methods or why many more growers have not chosen to move to organic growing when commercial success has been repeatedly demonstrated.

"I believe all primary products exported from New Zealand should be organic. It would not be easy but customers would be lining up to buy our products. We are an island nation and that would make conversion easier. The only reason New Zealand is regarded as clean and green is that we have a small population and plenty of wide open spaces.

"Organic sales have taken off overseas because consumers see the need for safe food. Chernobyl, mad cow disease, e-coli and foot and mouth have made people aware the food they eat can damage their health. This is a trend that can only accelerate. It is a wonderful opportunity for New Zealand if only we have to will to grasp it."