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Horticulture general manager, Wayne Hall, oversees all of Wi Pere Trust’s horticultural activities near Waerenga-a-Hika, just out of Gisborne
Persimmons part of growth plan Implementing a strategic planting strategy that offers many points of difference is paying dividends for a Tairāwhiti-based whānau trust. KRISTINE WALSH reports. Thirty-five years after persimmons were first established commercially in Gisborne, there is an award-winning new kid on the block, Wi Pere Trust (WPT), with grand plans to grow the persimmon industry further.
Wi Pere Trust emerged from the desire of its founding father, Wiremu Pere (Te Whānau-a-Kai/Te Aitanga-a-Māhaki), to preserve ancestral lands for future generations and to retain, protect, build and grow them for the benefit of whānau. Today, WPT has more than 500 beneficiaries and net assets valued at over $100 million, including sheep and beef farms, forestry land, 20-hectares of newly planted Rockit™ apples and another 20-ha earmarked for other apple varieties, 20-ha of newly established navel oranges, four hectares of blueberries and more. WPT horticulture manager, Wayne Hall, oversees all of WPT’s horticultural operations near Waerenga-a-Hika, just out of Gisborne; including 26-ha of conventional and organic Gold kiwifruit and four hectares of persimmons.
The Trust’s persimmon plantings are a big change from WPT’s early days of growing grapes – which are now all gone. Wayne says it’s all part of a strategic business plan devised a decade ago to focus on high-value export crops coupled with high-earning varieties for the domestic market. “We were price-takers on low-value crops and that did not bode well for the future,” Wayne says. “We developed this strategy that gives us a point of difference.” While WPT is a whānau trust, it is also a commercial entity that has obligations to its beneficiaries, he says. The early maturing M7 oranges have already proved their worth, with their late-June harvest ensuring WTP hits the market when New Zealand navels are in short supply and new season fruit is eagerly awaited by the domestic market. Kiwifruit have already given four years of high-end returns too. The new persimmon crop hit full production in 2021, two years ahead of schedule. The ORCHARDIST : JULY 2022
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