Last week KVH facilitated it’s twice-annual KiwiNet workshop, with around 40 participants from across the kiwifruit industry attending the day’s presentations.

The workshop was run with the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) and focussed on increasing understanding of how biosecurity responses are run. The day started with a rundown of recent MPI responses and the national biosecurity network, showcased with first-hand fruit fly stories and images from incursions over recent years.

MPI’s guest presenters Andrew Sander and Gabrielle Duggan then introduced the framework used by the Ministry (and other agencies such as Civil Defence and NZ Police) when initiating a response to a biosecurity incursion. The Coordinated Incident Management System, or CIMS as it is commonly known, is a framework of team structures, functions, processes, and terminology that is applied to biosecurity/emergency responses.

During the session, KiwiNet members split into groups and used the CIMS model to manage simulated responses to a fake Brown Marmorated Stink Bug (BMSB) incursion on a vineyard, near several other orchards, in a small urban area. Group members learnt how teams are put together in a response, how they work together day-to-day and what the specific roles and responsibilities of different teams are. Groups also had to work through the differences between being on-site in a response versus assisting MPI in Wellington’s head office.

From here, KiwiNet members and KVH will work with MPI on further response training opportunities.

KiwiNet is a network of people selected from across the kiwifruit industry who champion biosecurity readiness and coordinate the deployment of industry resources into biosecurity responses. You can read more about the work of the network here or in the Kiwifruit Journal.