Discovery Tours

Discovery Tours: Western Bay of Plenty

Primary industries with a focus on Horticulture and Technology

Māori are key players in Aotearoa’s Horticulture Sector! The Māori in Horticulture Report prepared by BERL (March 2020), published by Te Puni Kōkiri (TPK): November 2020 had the following findings:

The size of the Māori-owned horticulture sector is circa 4,000 hectares – which is 5% of the total sector;
Māori land is being slowly being converted to horticulture, it was circa 1,000 hectares in 2006;
Kiwifruit is the most significant single Māori grown crop (1,200 hectares);
The estimated gross output of Māori horticulture is $220 million (2019); and
An estimated 3,800 Māori are employed directly in the horticulture sector.

This discovery tour provided an exclusive experience into the various opportunities in this sector from ‘seed’ to ‘plate’.

Hosted at Kiwi 360, the tour started with a briefing from Seeka CEO Michael Franks followed by a tour of their avocado orchard. Seeka is a premier orchard to packhouse and produce to market service for growing, handling and storing fruit for prime producers of NZ's finest produce.

The tour included a visit to the worm farm which was highlighted as an important component for Seeka as part of their purposeful move towards better sustainability practices.

Following this, students heard from a panel of industry practitioners, professionals and experts across the horticulture value chain. Discussions between rangatahi and experts ranged from questions about their journey into the sector, opportunities in their companies, to what they enjoyed doing in their personal life.

Industry Panellist: