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NEW ZEALAND BEEKEEPER, JULY 2017
IT’S CONFERENCE TIME! CHIEF EXECUTIVE’S REPORT Karin Kos, Apiculture New Zealand Chief Executive The start of winter heralds the season of industry conferences and field days, including ours this month. I see that this year’s Mystery Creek field day attracted 133,588 people, the biggest number in the history of the four-day event.
NZ honey export volumes down but record prices continue So how did our industry fare to June 2017? As you would expect, given the 2016 poor honey season, export volumes of honey are down 16 percent this year. However, average export prices have increased eight percent to reach $38.50 per kilogram. This is the eighth consecutive year of record prices, driven in part by the market success of New Zealand mānuka honey. Our challenge is continuing to grow our value over the long-term. How we tell our New Zealand honey story across all our wonderful honey varieties will be a key part of that success, as will having a robust definition for New Zealand mānuka honey. Looking ahead, MPI says it’s difficult to predict the size of the honey crop for 2017 because climatic conditions have varied considerably around New Zealand. However, lower production in 2017 may not necessarily have a direct impact on exports in 2017 and 2018. Stock held over from previous years can be used to maintain export volumes.
Traditionally our top three export markets are Australia, China and Hong Kong, which combined usually make up around 50 percent of New Zealand’s honey exports. However, in the first nine months of 2017, the volume of honey exported to these three destinations is 41 percent lower than for the same period in 2016. In contrast, export volumes to Japan and the UK for the first nine months of 2017 are around 40 percent greater than exports for the first nine months of 2016. The volume of honey exported to Japan has been growing strongly since 2015. It will be interesting to see if this trend continues.
This year’s ApiNZ conference in Rotorua is expected to attract well over 1000 attendees, and support a sizeable trade show. These numbers are reflective of the growth of our industry and support the positive outlook for the primary sector and the agribusiness sector, generally. The strong growth story is also reflected in the Ministry for Primary Industries’ latest Situation and Outlook for Primary Industries report (SOPI) to June 2017. This report comes out every quarter and is a useful insight into how we are going as an export industry. Link to SOPI (June 2017): http://www.mpi.govt.nz/ document-vault/18443 Bumper year forecast for primary sector The report forecasts a bumper year ahead for the primary sector, after some challenging past seasons of wet conditions, earthquakes, cyclones and volatile global commodity prices. MPI is forecasting that primary sector exports will grow to $41.6 billion in the year to June 2018—this is an increase of 9.1 percent and would be the highest level ever.
Some of the trade displays at Conference 2016. Photo: Barry Foster.
See you at conference I look forward to meeting those of you attending this year’s ApiNZ Conference in Rotorua (9 to 11 July). Make sure you come and meet me and the team at our industry-good stand, along with members of our ApiNZ Focus Groups who will also be available to talk you through the work they are doing, and answer any questions.
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