Although Motueka's severe hail of a fortnight ago was devastating for the hardest hit orchardists, the national impact will be slight because the affected area was relatively small.
The overall Nelson kiwifruit crop accounts for only about 4 per cent of the national crop, and even taken together with the hail damage from the Bay of Plenty about the same time, hail losses would impact on less than 1 per cent of the national crop and would have no impact on overall prices, said a spokeswoman for Zespri, the exporter that supplies about 30 per cent of the world's supply.
Sally Gardiner, the general manager supply chain for Zespri, said the company had received notifications of damage from 20 orchards from the significant hail in the Nelson area and another 67 from a hail event in the Bay of Plenty recently.
Zespri operates a hail insurance scheme that automatically covers all Zespri kiwifruit destined for export. All claims under the Zespri insurance scheme are assessed by an independent loss assessor.
"Preliminary inspections of the South Island orchards were carried out the week before last and Bay of Plenty inspections were done last week. Preliminary inspections have revealed that around 50 of the 87 notifying orchards suffered leaf damage but without significant loss of fruitlets or buds - so, while there are some impacts, those orchards should be able to deliver a good marketable crop for 2015," said Gardiner.
Nineteen orchards have suffered varying amount of loss, ranging from moderate to severe. A portion of these orchards will be considered a total loss.
Zespri's hail insurance scheme has an excess of 10 per cent and a total of $12 million cover split between green and other varieties is available to growers and is jointly funded by Zespri growers and the insurer.
The events in Motueka happened when green kiwifruit were pre-fruit set, so an orchard assessed as a constructive total loss, or "write-off", will receive $3 per tray for the crop they would have harvested had the hail event not occurred, minus the excess. Gold was further along in maturity so the compensation is $7 per tray for orchards assessed as a constructive total loss, said Zespri.
This compares to last season's national figures for orchard gate returns of $5.23 a tray for green kiwifruit and $12.91 for gold.
NZ Hops operations manager Warren Amos said three hop growers were hit by hail and that Motueka hops grower Kim McGlashen would have the best read on the overall impact.
McGlashen said given how early in the season it was, he doubted it would have any effect on the overall crop size.
"The plants have a pretty good chance of producing a good crop," he said. Vigorous hops vines would send out new shoots that could be retrained.
He said for the three growers affected, who were in Dehra Doon and around the corner in Swamp Rd, Riwaka, costs would be up, but overall production should not be affected.
Source - http://www.stuff.co.nz/
