Imagine we find ourselves dealing with an invasion of one of our industry’s most unwanted threats, like fruit flies, stink bugs, or a nasty new pathogen … would you be able to help stop the spread?

With the Psa response, and more recently Covid-19, the kiwifruit industry has been reminded of the importance of preparation. That’s why KVH has joined forces with response experts to build our industry capability in preparation for any future biosecurity incursions or emergency events.

By working together, we can create a group of interested and trained people to help protect our industry and support KVH / Biosecurity New Zealand responses. It’s not just technical experts, everyone has a role to play in a response from coordinating logistics and operations through to assisting in welfare and communications.

If you are in a post-harvest or other industry organisation and keen to join us, please get in touch now to register your interest.

Why should I join?

You’ll be joining a self-paced, online learning module alongside others from across the industry who are ready and keen to learn about how New Zealand agencies and organisations coordinate, command and control responses of any scale using the Coordinated Incident Management System (CIMS).

CIMS can be used to manage an incident as well as plan for an incident response in the future. It establishes a framework of consistent principles, structures, functions, processes and terminology for response and the transition to recovery. This means people can come together to respond effectively to incidents across teams/functions and organisations.

This course will help you understand and be able to describe the role and purpose of CIMS while demonstrating knowledge of the elements, terminology, incident control procedures and operating environments.

This is about being able to contribute your industry and personal knowledge and skills to protect New Zealand kiwifruit, our business, and livelihoods. It’s also about recognising our collective commitment and preparedness to deal with any biosecurity challenges that we might face.

What’s required?

• You don’t need any specific biosecurity response experience – this is all about building our capability and using all the valuable skills that you already have.

• You will be committing to completing an online self-paced training module (Level 3 CIMS training) within 30 days of receiving your joining instructions and have access to complete the accompanying unit standard to receive recognition of your training.

• You’ll have access to online support for assessment via tutorial slots in the last seven days of the course.

• The cost is $150 plus GST, invoiced by KVH to your organisation.

What’s next?

This biosecurity response training plan has been developed so that as many of us as possible are prepared and ready to hit the ground running, should we need to deal with any unwanted pests or diseases.

The first session will run as soon as we have a full cohort, so to express your interest in participating please get in touch at info@kvh.org.nz. Once sessions are confirmed you will receive confirmation of your registration and you will then be sent joining information which includes access to the Moorebook e-learning module as well as information about assessment, via Te Pukenga.