Kiwifruit spray campaigner gets his Christmas wish

Horticulture spray campaigner John Levers. Photo / Peter de Graaf

''All I want for Christmas is a hydrogen cyanamide reassessment.''

It may not have the ring of the original Yuletide hit but for spray campaigner John Levers, nothing could have made a better Christmas present.

Levers and fellow Kerikeri resident Leigh Bramwell have been lobbying since August 2018 for a ban on the kiwifruit spray Hi-Cane or hydrogen cyanamide.

On Friday their relentless campaigning paid off when Levers was contacted by the Environmental Protection Authority to say the agency had agreed to carry out a reassessment to determine whether the substance should still be used in New Zealand.

''I think it's a Christmas present for Northland, and anyone who lives next to a kiwifruit orchard. This has been 18 months of full-time work for me,'' Levers said.

Kiwifruit growers, however, are unlikely to share Levers' Christmas cheer.

New Zealand Kiwifruit Growers chief executive Nikki Johnson earlier told the Advocate that Hi-Cane was an essential tool, without which the amount of fruit produced in many parts of the country — especially in areas without cold winters such as Northland — would make kiwifruit growing uneconomic.

The spray's risks could be managed through existing controls and industry best practice, Johnson said.

In September this year Levers persuaded the EPA there were grounds for a reassessment after he presented the agency with ''significant new information''.

The new information was a European Food Safety Authority study of the effects of Hi-Cane on spray operators, bystanders and birdlife published in 2010.

However, It was still up to the EPA to decide whether a reassessment was merited. The next step also required Levers to stump up a $28,000 reassessment fee.

However, Levers then found a legal provision allowing the EPA to prioritise a reassessment of any substance without the fee, provided there were sufficient grounds.

He had then ''embarrassed'' the EPA into ordering an immediate reassessment without making him pay.

Levers has not been given a timeline but was optimistic the process would be complete before the next spray season starts in August.

The EPA itself said the timing would depend on resourcing and other reassessments already under way. The process is open to public submissions.

Levers said he did not believe a ban on Hi-Cane — if that was the outcome — would end the kiwifruit industry in Northland and alternatives were already on the market.

The industry, however, has said research was continuing into promising alternatives, but as yet there was no effective replacement for Hi-Cane.

''I'm not trying to take down the industry,'' Levers said.

''In Italy the kiwifruit industry is still going despite Hi-Cane being banned in Europe since 2008,'' he said.

Hi-Cane is used in the absence of frost in areas such as Northland to ensure uniform bud-break, so vines produce plenty of fruit which ripens around the same time.