The second plaintiff in the Kiwifruit Claim, Seeka, has told the New Zealand High Court of the significant impact Psa had on its post-harvest business.
It is one of 212 claimants seeking accountability and compensation from the Ministry of Primary Industries for over NZ$376m of losses suffered by growers and the industry, after an outbreak of the disease PSA-V in November 2010 spread.
Seeka CEO Michael Franks took the stand on Monday in Wellington, and while he did not offer evidence regarding the orchard section of his company due to proceedings in another court, but in his brief of evidence he noted that following the PSA incursion, Seeka was fundamentally unsure about the continuing viability of its kiwifruit business as a whole. The company's share price took a hit dropping from over NZ$4.00 to $0.85.
Photo: Michael Franks
He presented that Seeka’s volumes of Hort16A dropped away dramatically in 2012, and the following year, volumes of Hort16A were less than 10% of what they had been in 2011. Mr Franks went onto say that it was not until 2016 that G3 volumes reached the level that the variety had been at before they were destroyed by Psa-V. He recalled the decision to downsize the company in 2011 and offer both voluntary and then forced redundancies, due to lower trade volumes and uncertainty in the industry.
The CEO said the company had to sell assets, including 628,000 shares, which led to a loss of $324,130 and it also lost $480,605 after selling its interest in OPAC at a lower price than it bought it for in 2004.
Mr Franks also recounted a complaint the company made against Kiwi Pollen, after only learning after the Psa outbreak that it had been importing the pollen and selling it in New Zealand, claiming that no-one in the industry that he spoke to knew this was happening. He said the Commerce Commission gave Kiwi Pollen a warning.
Evidence was also presented regarding a meeting of the Zespri Advisory Council on November 19, 2010. He said MAF and the industry should move to cut out all infected orchards around the epicentre and spray the area heavily, sighting the success of the Australian government containing Citrus Canker in 2004. At the time he also did not see a problem with the proposed funding model of $25million in government assistance, noting that the industry should take what it could to carry it through and negotiate for more, if it turned out to be inadequate. However he presented to the court that he did not consider, accept or agree that the industry’s losses could be compensated for $25million.
Photo: A vine at first plaintiff in the claim, Strathboss Kiwifruit Ltd.
A former employee of Kiwi Pollen, Janice Mitchell told the court that the company was setting up a pollen milling operation in Chile. In her brief of evidence she believed that Managing Director Jill Hamlyn was importing pollen, thought to be from Chile. However this was being held up by the Ministry for Agriculture and Fisheries in Auckland. Ms Mitchell said that this pollen still had not arrived by the time she left the company in 2009, and was not aware of any plans to produce pollen in China.
But she did state that Ms Hamlyn would buy pollen off other kiwifruit pollen producers to make up her stocks for the export season, meaning that not all the pollen in the freezers had been produced by Kiwi Pollen.
Ms Hamlyn, along with other co-owner Graeme Crawshaw, is due to take the stand later in the week.
The MPI is denying most of the claims and will present its evidence later in the proceedings which are expected to last 12 weeks.