KiwiNet working towards biosecurity excellence

KVH yesterday facilitated it’s twice-annual KiwiNet workshop, with around 50 participants attending the days presentations.

The workshop focussed on increasing biosecurity best practice; progress that has been made over the last six months on kiwifruit industry readiness for our most unwanted pest threats; research underway to learn more about kiwifruit fungal pathogens like Brazilian Wilt and Verticillium Wilt; and what KVH learnt from contributing to the BMSB response in Santiago, Chile.

Guest presenters included Ed Massey from NZ Wine who provided an overview of the wine industry’s perspective on biosecurity, and Steve Gilbert from the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) who updated the audience on MPI initiatives underway to enhance border biosecurity systems.

Attendees also took part in an exercise to help formulate the early draft of a workplan for initiatives that could be introduced over the next 12 months, within KVH and across the industry, to increase uptake (and remove barriers) of important on-orchard biosecurity behaviours like the checking and cleaning of tools and machinery, and reporting of new and unusual symptoms.

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 and in your November/December issue of the Kiwifruit Journal.