Gloomy Outlook For Islands Fruit

The outlook for Islands fruit on the New Zealand sideboard is gloomy.

Banana imports are dropping and supplies of oranges from the Cook Islands will be limited for a few years. New Zealand will make an effort to lift Cook Islands orange production, and will probe the price structure of fruit imported from that S r( ?up. . • "^ me Minister Norman Kirk, m the Cl after the South Pacific Forum at Apia, said there seemed to be too much of a gap between the pnce pmd in the Cooks, about 2Jc per lb, and 20c in NZ. He would like to know why growers were asked

to use cases which cost 80c each, instead of cheaper cartons. Nor could he understand why it cost more to ship bananas to NZ from the Cl than from Ecuador.

New Zealand will send special agriculture and agronomy teams to the Cook Islands to help lift fruit production. The work will cost about 130,000, but is expected to start pro ducing results in about 18 months, and could bring the orange juice factories back into full production, The Premier, Mr Albert Henry, said an average minimum yield from each orange tree was five cases, but on many plantations the yield had

dropped to two and a half cases because plantation workers had either gone to NZ or worked on the Raro tonga airport construction, where they earned better money. His government would take over any neglected plan tations. With new plantings and the NZ assistance, production should treble in about five years.

The banana industry in Fiji, West ern Samoa and Tonga, the traditional suppliers to the NZ market, is ailing, to say the least. Apart from hurricane damage, which knocked production back about 12 months, plant disease is rife. Fiji (Bebe) and Tonga (Juliette) both suffered hurricanes in the last eight months.

The Union Steam Ship Co of NZ Ltd is known to be unhappy about the virtual one-way trade. Ten and 20 years ago they could have expected substantial return loads of bananas for NZ. New Zealand has started to take increasing quantities of bananas from Ecuador, from where there is an assured supply, although the quality does not reach that of the Islands grown fruit. But banana growing in Ecuador is a highly sophisticated industry, while in the islands it is largely a village industry.

Fruit Distributors Ltd, under an agreement made in 1951, has sole import rights for fresh citrus fruits, bananas and pineapples. This agree ment will expire in October, 1976.

Fruit Distributors is not happy with the banana situation in the Islands, and sees little hope of improvement.

There will always be bananas for local consumption in the Islands, but the export trade looks like dying away.

Honiara will

ban stubbies

No-deposit one-trip stubby bottles are unpopular with the authorities in Australia. They prefer a stronger bottle on which a deposit is paid, giving an incentive to return them and help to control pollution. The Honiara Town Council objects to them on hygienic grounds.

The council has given local manu facturers of soft drinks 12 months’ notice to use only glass long-necked bottles instead of the stubbies. Hon iara Town Clerk Sidney Melville says they are hard to clean because of their shape—even a hand bottle washer could not clean them thoroughly. Anyway, they were not intended to be used more than once.

One manufacturer says he only uses stubbies to meet competition, while another says he has machinery and equipment which cleans them thoroughly.