IT'S been a wild ride for apple industry chief Phil Alison. He has been at the helm of grower organisation Pipfruit New Zealand for five of the stormiest years of the industry's 100-year life.
The most bitterly-disputed of New Zealand's producer board deregulation wrangles is now behind him, with growers enjoying a 25 per cent leap in income. But new battles remain to be fought.
Driving him on is the need to strengthen the industry and cement its place as the world's leader. Crucial to this is the formation of an industry-wide organisation, he says.
At their annual meeting in January, growers narrowly voted down a plan to join exporters, post-harvest operators and industry suppliers in one big entity.
Since then, Mr Alison has been talking with industry heavyweight Mr Apple, whose production-weighted vote helped torpedo the plan. A compromise has been reached and a new proposal is being floated at grower meetings -- largely unchanged from the previous one, but with more detail in key areas.
"It was pretty tough to accept, especially after the encouragement we had received from our guest speakers [international apple industry observers Chris White and Des O'Rourke].
"We were bitterly disappointed and left extremely flat. Pipfruit New Zealand's staff were confused and frustrated. I told them, 'You've got to roll with the punches. They pay the money and you represent them and if that's what they say, then that's fine'."
But the idea was too important to let go. Many growers had urged Mr Alison to keep working on it. "That was encouraging, not hearing people say it was a dumb idea, so I took another crack at it."
The issue is typical of the ups and downs the 44-year-old Havelock North grower has weathered since he entered industry politics.
He lists his biggest achievement as his part in bringing the deregulation debate to a successful conclusion in 2001. The Apple and Pear Board, trading as Enza, kept firm control of the industry through its legislated monopoly, a situation most growers felt comfortable with for many years. But in the 1990s that changed, as a series of foreign exchange losses totalling $ 67 million and poor returns undermined their confidence.
He says the industry was very close to falling apart. "The performance of the sole marketer was abysmal. I believe it was rotten from top to bottom -- the performance, the accountability, the transparency."
Some growers could not survive the years of poor returns and many almost went under. To make matters worse, Hawke's Bay was hit by two destructive hail storms in six years.
"Yet we had a good product, we were recognised internationally as still the best in the world, we had very innovative and highly skilled growers and we were able to export to 60-odd countries in an over-supplied market," he says. "But we were all losing our shirts off our backs. I can remember some of those years just before the end, we ended up with little more than $ 7 a carton for braeburns, even with one company selling the whole lot with controlled marketing.
"We've now got $ 19-odd and any exporter who fronted up to a grower with a $ 7 cheque for braeburn would get taken behind the bike sheds and dealt to."
WHEN apple exports were deregulated, Enza's new owner, Sir Ron Brierley's Guinness Peat Group, wanted to keep a $ 21 million reserve to offset the ongoing forex losses.
The pipfruit growers fought this in the courts, eventually coming out on top. "That was a real David and Goliath fight," Mr Alison recalls. "We had very few resources and we struggled to get legal representation; it seemed that every firm in Wellington and Auckland was conflicted."
With just one full-time staffer to help, he left his orchard and worked fulltime on the case for four months. "It had so many twists and angles, it was hugely taxing. We were awarded the $ 21.4 million, plus costs -- that was a fantastic achievement."
He says the industry has rebounded surprisingly quickly from those tough years.
"The growers have gone out and formed new relationships. That's what the business is based on -- the personal touch."
Orcharding is different from other farming operations, he says. It is a high-risk business, with high seasonal working capital and a high labour input.
"It's year-to-year survival and that suits the Kiwi psyche. We can relate to the foreign pickers, the low socio-economic employees, and at the same time we can talk to the head of produce of one of the world's largest supermarket chains.
"Today's orchardist has the ability to manage his crop right through to the end user."
Pipfruit NZ is also in great shape, he says. "When I started it had $ 230,000 in financial reserves. Now it has $ 3.5 million and can afford to lower the grower levy."
The organisation plays a big part in making international gains that benefit the New Zealand grower. One is the recent move to weight-based sizing of apples in international markets under United Nations regulations promoted by New Zealand that is estimated to bring growers an extra $ 6 million a year.
The big breakthrough Mr Alison would love to see is the removal of barriers into the Australian market. A recent World Trade Organisation finding has ruled out Australia using the risk of fireblight disease as an excuse for shutting out New Zealand apples.
However, Australian growers are fighting this and Mr Alison accepts that it may be some time before the potential $ 20 million market is opened to New Zealand.
In the meantime, the industry is moving closer to Australia in a deal to fund pipfruit research. A joint venture between Australian growers, marketer Horticulture Australia, United States-based nursery group Associated International, HortResearch and Pipfruit NZ is nearing completion.
As the industry heads toward a record harvest of more than 20 million cartons, it could not be in better shape, Mr Alison says.
Post-harvest operators and growers are investing heavily in expansion and the demand for new growing land is high.
Many growers are joining in post-harvest handling and some are doing their own exporting.
"The big growers are getting bigger and the serious players are getting more serious," he says. "We've dropped the political baggage that went with the single desk monopoly. That was important to do.
"The resources, the focus, the time were all wasted on playing the wrong game. Now we're focused on dealing with the issues that matter."The Dominion Post (Wellington, New Zealand):
