Jen Scoular: Forums keep growers informed

The Tauranga grower forum.

Our annual grower forums are a great opportunity for us to update growers and the industry on technical information, in market activities, industry systems updates.

More importantly, it provides the opportunity for two-way communication and engagement. We hosted grower forums in Whangarei and in Tauranga this year, the Whangarei one following our AGM at the end of August.

It is very important for us as the industry body to stay relevant, to ensure we invest funds from our growers well, and to provide an opportunity for those levy paying growers to give us feedback on how we deliver to them.

The grower forum includes workshops on our current research programme, and asks growers what they would like us to invest in going forward.

What was noted at both forums was an increase in the participation of our rural professionals, those working in and on our industry, but not growers. We had a number who bought stands at the forums, and a larger number participating in the audience.

They are seeing many growers, are offering specialist advice and seeing the variation of growing across our industry, so it is great they are utilising our forums as a way to increase their knowledge.

I presented an industry update which outlined some of the innovative activity, done right across the industry, that helped push a record industry value of over $200m last season.

We heard from Countdown and Foodstuffs about the avocado promotion and innovation of avocados in their business. We are very pleased to hear that avocados are very valuable to retailers, and they are always looking for new ways to add value to our category.

The research sessions at the grower forum included a talk from Dr Kerry Everett from Plant & Food Research on her work developing a rot prediction tool for the avocado industry. Kerry had earlier received the NZ Avocado Service to the Industry award, making her presentation even more timely.

Marisa Till, NZ Avocado's research manager, gave an overview of the current research projects and how they are delivering value to growers.

John Wiessing, a Whangarei grower, spoke about his experience as part of the technical working group. This is a group of scientists, NZ Avocado staff and members of the industry that are tasked with ensuring the research is relevant, on-track and delivers back to growers in a practical way.

The research team facilitated a workshop where growers were able to feedback on the projects that were underway, where the research priorities should lie going forward and how they want the results delivered.

Bevan Jelley, NZ Avocado's Market Manager and Mike Swan, Southern Produce, covered off our New Zealand avocado story being shared and the activity being undertaken within the New Zealand market. Alistair Young, AVOCO, joined Bevan to talk about the innovation and collaboration story taking place in the export markets.

We recently published the second edition of the NZ Avocado research bulletin which provides a snapshot of the exciting results emerging from our research portfolio.
It delivers to both our growers and other industry stakeholders the opportunity to contribute to the ongoing work in the aim to maximise the impact our programme has for our industry.