New Zealand dairy farms being replaced by avocado orchards
Avocados achieved new records for volume and value in the 2016-17 season, and investors keen to capitalise on the trend for avocados are planning large scale plantings.
"Demand for new trees has resulted in a near trebling of production at nurseries; large commercial investors in Northland are converting dairy farms to avocado orchards and smaller orchards are maximising the productivity of their orchards," chairman of NZ Avocado Ashby Whitehead, said.
Dutch company Levarht jumped at the opportunity and was recently granted approval to invest in a joint venture to buy a former dairy farm near Kaipara Harbour and plant 100,000 trees by 2020-21.
NZ Avocado chief executive Jen Scoular said the industry had a goal to reach a value of $275m by 2022-23, putting it the fourth ranked horticulture product behind kiwifruit, wine and apples.
The Ministry for Primary Industries has forecast that once export receipts are tallied to the end of June this year, export volumes and values will double to 5.1 million trays and $165m.
This season avocados sales reached $198 million, an increase of $64 million on last season and $62m higher than the previous record of $136m in 2013-14.
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