Horticulture exports continue to rise

By Phil Boeyen, ShareChat Business News Editor

Friday 20th July 2001

New Zealand's horticultural exports are nudging the $2 billion mark, led by kiwifruit and apples.

The Ministry of Agriculture says provisional export figures from a farm monitoring report for the year ended March estimate the value of horticulture exports to be $1.9 billion, a jump of 9% over last year and up 26% over the past five years.

The provisional figures indicate kiwifruit is currently the largest export earner at $588 million, an increase of around 70% since 1994.

Apples are next at $369 million, followed by wine exports at $201 million, up from $17 million in 1994.

Of the smaller sectors, avocados have shown a strong increase, up from $6.5 million to $26 million since 1994.

In the same period the amount of land used for horticulture has grown 28% to an estimated 128,000 hectares. The two largest horticultural regions are Canterbury Hawke's Bay.

Since 1994 the amount of land used for growing wine grapes has grown by 77% while the kiwifruit area has only changed 0.1% over the same period. The area in apples has fallen by 7%.

Comments from our readers

No comments yet