A very big Thank You
Date: 14 Feb 2012
Horticulture New Zealand would like to pass on the heartfelt thanks of all New Zealand’s fruit and vegetable growers to the Christchurch biosecurity inspector who takes her work home.
The report released last week by the Ministry of Agriculture into the incorrect importation of 7000 strawberry seed kits into this country last year, admits that only one woman on their staff noticed something was wrong.
And this one inspector wasn’t even at work. She was out shopping at the weekend when she noticed the kits on a shelf at The Warehouse and reported her concern.
MAF’s report blames a series of “minimal” mistakes for the release of the Chinese origin kits into this country.
HortNZ is disappointed the importer Tui Products and the exporter both failed to make the appropriate checks before the kits came to New Zealand.
“And obviously we are very disappointed the MAF process was not robust enough to stop this happening,” HortNZ president Andrew Fenton says.
“It’s exactly this kind of incident that we have to be aware of, not just the possibility that something can slip through the cracks like this, but that it will.”
New Zealand horticulture is already counting the cost of several recent biosecurity incursions, including Psa and the tomato-potato psyllid.
“It is disturbing for all growers to know that New Zealand’s biosecurity protection now relies on the sharp-eyed, off-duty wariness of a very small group of good people.
“We are only one Queensland Fruit Fly away from a very, very costly situation.”
