Land Development
We’re committing to building 10 kiwifruit orchards on nearly 90 hectares of Māori land in Bay of Plenty and Gisborne in 2017/18. Poutama engagements began in March with owners and trustees of the selected blocks.
The kiwifruit orchards on Omaio 39 and Matakana 9 are now fully built. Establishment of the kiwifruit vines is under way. We’re on track to achieve our goal of 33 months to first harvest.
Land development projects
Our mānuka honey programme has three ongoing components:
1. the honey project – working with land owners and tenants to increase their potential return by harvesting mānuka honey from the wild resource
2. Mānuka Business Feasibility Study – assessing land blocks to identify the viability of a mānuka honey business
3. the Mānuka Cultivars Plantation Project – in partnership with Mānuka Farming New Zealand, identifying appropriate underutilised land and working with the land owners to develop a mānuka plantation.
Through the Mānuka Cultivars Plantation Project, we’ve identified two land blocks and trusts to work with. The assessment and planning is well under way for Hauhungaroa 7 in these blocks.
We’ve started working with Auckland University of Technology and Precision Hawk to trial experimental drone technology to identify the quality between mānuka and kānuka to support our honey project.