Sitting in a pip fruit conference for a couple of days last week made me realise the amount of grunt that goes into this sort of industry behind the scenes.
Pip fruit, in case you're wondering, is essentially apples and to a much lesser extent pears. We're now apparently
recognised as world leaders in apple expertise and production and yet in our universities just two thousand kids are studying horticulture which to someone like former Clark minister Steve Maharey, who's now the boss at Massey University is disappointing.
Maharey, trying to improve the image and the attraction of the fruit that tempted Eve way back when, tells kids they can be to horticulture what Lorde is to pop music. Not surprisingly they're incredulous. Apples don't crack it, unless it's a music label.
But it's the work that goes on behind the scenes that's impressive, the work being done on our behalf to put Granny Smith on the world stage.
It's impressive because for the most part we see the show ponies, the politicians gloating about pulling off free trade agreements and the like when in reality it's the Clydesdales, or the bureaucrats, doing all the thankless heavy lifting behind the scenes.
During the two day conference they were trotted out from across the spectrum, from work and income protecting local jobs while controlling harvest labour from the islands, to the all important biosecurity boffins, hunting down that minuscule fruitfly that at times sneaks across the border.
One told the story of a ten year old who unwittingly almost got the microscopic pest into the country in his backpack. It was embedded in a squashed melon in a damp corner of the bag.
The figures are impressive, five and a half million passengers coming into the country a year. Ironically the most obnoxious of them generally tend to be the Americans who apparently remonstrate the most about having their bags checked for pests.
It's all done in the interests of presenting our produce abroad as pest free and it's done on behalf of the producer to ensure they get the best price from the fruits of their labour.
It puts it into some sort of perspective, the screeds of paper dumped on our desks recently about the pros and cons of doing the dodgy sheep farm deal with the Saudis.
Someone after all had to fill the pages to provide the platform for the ponies. In this case though it was more like death by a thousand pages, the case was unconvincing!
Barry Soper is political editor at Newstalk ZB.
