Passionfruit Industry

There’S A Blight On Niue’S

From STAFFORD L. K. GUEST on Niue

Niuean passionfruit growers seem to have “the pip” over calls for an all-out effort to boost production this season to meet ever-increasing demands for their produce on the New Zealand market.

According to the Niue Development Board food factory manager, Dave Pooch, production figures have been on the decline for the past three years and he’s predicted that this season will see an all-time low in pulp and juice output.

Niue, which supplies about onethird of the New Zealand market, relies on passionfruit pulp and juice to boost its flagging economy. Pooch says that only 70 tonnes is expected

this season from growers which will bring in about $lOO,OOO in overseas funds. He was expecting about 125 tonnes to meet orders, “Niue has the potential to in crease by three-fold its pulp ex ports,” says Mr Pooch, “but the re sponse we have had from the growers has been very poor.”

Growers are now getting 22c a kilo for fruit which is marketed in New Zealand at $1.45 a kilo. Niue has so far managed to fight off increasing competition from Fiji growers who are also anxious to capture the increasing demand for pulp and juice by overseas buyers, “1 really think the novelty of

growing has worn off passionfruit growing is a tedious and time-con suming job,” says Mr Pooch.

The vines have to be hand-polli nated and until a mechanical aid is invented to take the tedium out of the job or a self-pollinating plant is found Mr Pooch holds out little hope for the industry which was started about six years ago.

Most Niuean families have a 1,000 sq metre plot of vines near their homes and the cost of erecting poles and wires on which the vines grow is met by the Development Board. The grower repays the in stallation cost over several seasons.

Women and children hand pollinate the large yellow flowers and weed the rows.

But over the past year many women have been working on the $700,000 round-the-island electric Cower reticulation scheme and this as been one cause of the drop in production, according to Niue’s Minister of Economic Development and chairman of the board, Young Vivian.

Dry weather and the fact that many Niueans have spent a lot of time entertaining relatives and friends from New Zealand during the holiday period have all been fac tors in the decline, he said.

Agriculture Director Morris Tafatu supports the minister’s reasons for the decline and con siders it is too early in the season to predict another poor crop.

The Niue Development Board is making an all-out effort to meet the demands of the market by introduc ing trial eight-hectare passionfruit orchards and will seek financial aid from New Zealand to establish them as a commercial venture.

Several families are managing two-hectare blocks successfully and at the peak of the season produce about 150 kilos of fruit a week.

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