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Prime Minister John Key has rejected claims that cuts to frontline bio-secuirty staff led to a devastating disease attacking kiwifruit vines.
The canker, PSA, was discovered in a number of vines in a Bay of Plenty orchard on Friday and has been confirmed by Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry officials. A series of crisis meetings will be held today.
Labour's bio-security spokesman Damian O'Connor said the number of frontline bio-security staff was cut by 54 in the 2009 budget. He said the Government should ''urgently'' reassess the cuts, which ''many people'' will be questioning.
However, Key denied the Government was pulling resources from bio-security.
''We don't accept that. The Government has poured a lot of resouces in that area and done everything we can to be as efficent as we expect every government deparment to be. The reality is we don't know how the strain has got here.
''It could have been latent...I don't think we should jump to conclusions yet. I'm confident biosecurity has the resources and it's working well.''
It may take up to two weeks to determine which strain has infected the vines. The discovery of the disease is ''concerning,'' he said.
''We can't rule out the fact that if it is the viral strain that we've seen in Italy then it could have quite a big impact on our industry.''
New Zealand marketer Zespri has lost 50 per cent of its gold cultivar vines in Italy.
The industry employs over 20000 people and is worth $1.5 billion in exports, he said.
Labour leader Phil Goff said the contamination underlined the risk the Government had taken in cutting jobs.
''It doesn't make sense to cut corners on biosecurity when you've got big risks like this PSA disease for kiwifruit vines. We should be putting enough money into there, not cutting staff, not cutting millions of dollars out of the biosecurity budget.
''When you've got a $22 billion industry, you can't short-change biosecurity and they've cut money and they've cut positions.''
PINPOINTING STRAIN
More tests are being conducted to pinpoint the strain of the disease.
The PSA canker can devastate kiwifruit orchards and has been particularly damaging in Italy, where New Zealand marketer Zespri has lost 50 per cent of its gold cultivar vines.
Zespri chief executive Lain Jager said it was too early to tell whether New Zealand's industry faced similar risks.
Ad Feedback He said it was important to find which strain of the disease it was because some were more virulent than others.
"The other thing is we don't know whether this thing is on one or two orchards or whether it's spread through the industry."
He told Radio New Zealand that information packs have been sent to growers, so the spread of the disease could be assessed.
CONTROL MEASURES
MAF, Plant and Food Research and Zespri officials will be at crisis meetings in Te Puke and Tauranga to discuss how to combat the disease.
One option for containing the vine-killing bacteria may be to rip out the infected vines and burn them.
Zespri is working closely with scientists and research partners to determine the most effective and appropriate control mechanism, which it says will partly be directed by the geographical location, proximity to other orchards and the site's risk profile.
A spokeswoman said that control strategies "may take into consideration the need to remove and destroy the infected vines".
But Zespri's Jager was more blunt when asked if the industry might seek to have the infected vines destroyed.
"If it looks like this thing is containable, I imagine that MAF would take a leadership position," he told NZPA. "In this case, that would probably involve cutting and burning".
"I can't speak for MAF, but from an industry perspective, we would be working very closely with MAF to determine how that could be achieved".
Jager acknowledged a New Zealander with direct experience of the Italian disaster, Opotiki Packing and Coolstorage Ltd (Opac) managing director Craig Thompson, had said that the Italians had wrongly thought that normal measures such as removing and burning infected vines would get the outbreak under control.
"The severity of this outbreak is such that (that) hasn't been sufficient to control it," Thompson said in April after the disease gutted the company's million-tray 84ha Newgold orchard in Italy's Lazio region, and the company's directors warned that their $7 million investment should be written off.
Japanese efforts to use copper compounds and antibiotics against the disease led to the evolution of resistant bacteria, but Jager said experts said copper could be used in New Zealand to slow down the bacteria.
"Eventually this thing will settle down to where either we've eradicated it or there's a mature management regime, but in the meantime people will be thinking very hard about how to minimise their exposure," Mr Jager said.
It was important to understand New Zealand conditions were not the same as in Italy, without a tremendously cold winter and there was no sign of cankers yet on the NZ vines.
"There are other strains of PSA in Japan and Korea and they manage it quite well," he said. "Where they have an infected vine, the orchardists cut it out and move on."
"We are at the beginning of an enormous learning curve".
Best-practice protocols yet to be developed for New Zealand might include copper foliar sprays, experimentation with antibiotics, and cutting and burning.
TRADE TALKS
Bio-security Minister David Carter said MAF and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade were working with New Zealand's trading partners, including Australia, the US and China.
"We will work to minimise the risk of any trade restrictions by providing regular information and updates."
He said at this stage it was not known how the disease had arrived in New Zealand and it was possible it may have been here for some time.
PSA is spread by pollen, heavy rainfall, strong winds, animals and humans. The disease appears to only attack under certain environmental conditions.
''It carries no human or animal health risk and does not affect plants other than kiwifruit vines. Kiwifruit remain safe to eat," Carter said.
''This is a time for a considered and responsible approach and I am encouraged that all primary sector stakeholders are supporting the kiwifruit industry and Government as we work out exactly what we are dealing with.
MAJOR INDUSTRY
Kiwifruit is a major export earner for New Zealand. Zespri sold $1.5 billion worth in the year to March, with 91 per cent of its supplies grown in New Zealand. Almost a quarter of Zespri's local production is the gold variety.
In Italy PSA has been present since 1992, but became serious only after a new strain emerged there in 2007.
New Zealand has had no previous incidences of PSA in kiwifruit, suggesting it is likely to have been introduced through plant imports.
An advisory note from the California Kiwifruit Commission this year said although the bacterium is spread by heavy rainfalls, strong winds, animals and humans, "it is known that only trade of infected planting material can spread the disease over long distances".
The European Plant Protection Organisation also considers long distance dispersal is most likely associated with movement of infected plants.
Since 2000 New Zealand has imported six consignments of kiwifruit bud wood, including two from Italy, and six consignments of pollen from China and Chile.
A MAF spokesman said: "All bud wood and pollen are imported under permit to import and necessary assessments are done periodically.
"Bud wood go through post entry quarantine and PCR test [a molecular biology test] before biosecurity clearance."
Jager said controlling the potential outbreak was the priority.
"Most of our attention now is focused on communicating with growers, focusing on orchard hygeine and working with growers to identify to what extent there are symptoms of PSA present in the country."
Because PSA had not been in New Zealand before, it was impossible to know how it would affect crops in this environment, he said.
"This is potentially a serious disease, hence our strong focus on seeking to manage the spread of the thing here."
PSA, which initially appears as brown spotting on leaves, can kill kiwifruit vines but is no threat to human health.
Efforts at control involve measures such as keeping pruning tools clean and destroying diseased plants.
Carter said while the strain of the disease was not yet known, all necessary precautions had been put in place on the orchard to avoid the disease spreading.
"It is imperative that a considered and responsible approach to this potential threat is taken by all primary sector stakeholders while the kiwifruit industry and Government works out exactly what we are dealing with."
PSA FACTS
* Pseudomonas syringae pv actinidiae (PSA or batteriosi) is a bacterial disease affecting kiwifrui.
* It was first identified on green kiwifruit vines (Hayward) in Japan about 25 years ago.
* PSA has never been confirmed present in New Zealand.
* PSA has caused significant damage to Italian kiwifruit production since 2007.
* There are four known strains, some more destructive than others.
- by Tim Hunter, Kirsty McDonald, Martin Kay, Andrea Vance and NZPA |
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发表于 2010-11-9 19:23:39
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妄想症。。。。。
