Summer action at the border

It was a busy summer at New Zealand’s borders, with increases in almost every type of intervention activity for cargo, vessels, mail and passengers.

The Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) summer infographic report for December 2017 – February 2018 shows that stopping our most unwanted pests, namely fruit flies and Brown Marmorated Stink Bug (BMSB), is still a big focus.

There were 10 interceptions of fruit fly over the period and almost 200 BMSB events. The BMSB statistics are up on the previous year, highlighting how much of an increased risk we face from this invasive pest as it spreads around other countries and how important it is we continue to take a hard line ensuring high-risk goods and freight is cleaned and treated offshore as much as possible.

Two million passengers arrived at our international airports over the three-month period, a 5% increase on the previous year. The most common undeclared item seized by officials was fresh produce, found 3,111 times. Fresh fruit and vegetables cannot be bought in to New Zealand by passengers and this material poses a great fruit fly risk – check that anyone visiting or working on your orchard from overseas doesn’t have any fresh produce with them. Make sure any items they may have inadvertently bought with them is destroyed by being bagged and put in the rubbish, not composted.

Other summer statistics of interest for the kiwifruit industry:

· 17 bulk car carriers visited New Zealand. Four were denied entry due to the presence of live stink bugs associated with vehicles out of Japan.

· 1,821 cargo consignments were targeted for BMSB inspection. This is more than double the previous year due to increased targeting measures by MPI.

· 67,488 empty containers imported, 92% of which were clean on arrival.

KVH is fully supportive of the strong actions MPI staff are taking at the border, and the policy settings put in place to make sure the cargo and goods arriving here meet our strict biosecurity standards. We will continue to work closely with MPI to influence the development of policies and standards that may impact the kiwifruit industry, and to influence decisions on specific issues.