Readiness and response

Readiness and response is about being fully prepared for significant pests and diseases if they arrive in New Zealand. This involves being able to detect them as soon as they get here, and then being able to immediately activate the appropriate response activities in order to give us the best chances of eradication.


Readiness

In May 2016 KVH signed the Operational Agreement (OA) for the management of fruit fly on behalf of the kiwifruit industry - a significant milestone to further improve biosecurity readiness and response activities for fruit flies and the first such agreement under the Government Industry Agreements (GIA) partnership.

Essentially, OAs set out the operational requirements for readiness and response activities for specific biosecurity threats and importantly, enables joint decision making and also clarifies cost-sharing arrangements between government and affected industries.

Since then, KVH has been at the forefront of developing an OA to help reduce the damaging impacts of the four most common biosecurity threats to the kiwifruit and kiwiberry sectors (completed in March 2017) as well as a horticultural sector OA for the management of brown marmorated stink bug (BMSB) which was signed in July 2017.

Below are links to documents and further information about KVH readiness activities.


Response

KiwiNet is a network of people selected from across the kiwifruit industry to coordinate the deployment of industry resources into a biosecurity response. KiwiNet has been involved in the following responses:

The detection of a breeding population of Queensland Fruit Fly (QFF) in Auckland in early 2015 resulted in a large biosecurity response. This was the first major biosecurity response under GIA, and the first time kiwifruit industry resources had been deployed into a response using KiwiNet.

Read more about KiwiNet members' experience during the 2015 response.

Different species of solitary, male, fruit flies were detected in several Auckland suburbs in 2019, resulting in biosecurity responses that involved kiwifruit industry resources across several teams in response headquarters and the deployment of KiwiNet to assist with field activities such as trapping, surveillance, and public awareness.

Read more about KiwiNet members' experience during the 2019 response.

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