Hi-Cane to be re-assessed
A Kerikeri man has succeeded in persuading the Environmental Protection Authority to reconsider whether a controversial kiwifruit spray should be allowed in New Zealand.
For the past year John Levers, a former pilot, now lodge and vineyard owner, and a Far North mayoral candidate, has been lobbying to have HiCane banned, and trying to persuade the industry to enforce its own spraying guidelines. He applied to the EPA for a reassessment of the chemical, paying the $1100 fee himself, and last week the authority agreed that information he had provided comprised sufficient grounds to revise the spray’s hazard classification.
Mr Levers, believed to be the first individual to have succeeded in having a substance re-assessed, said he would not feel vindicated until Hi-Cane was banned, but he was delighted to have got that far.
“I’ve been working on this fulltime for a year. It just shows what a little guy can do, if you’re determined and don’t take no for an answer,” he said.
He talked to the EPA last week about the next steps, which he expected would take about six months.
Hi-Cane is generally used in August to promote even budbreak on kiwifruit vines, Mr Levers submitting the results of a European study into the effects of its active ingredient on people, ground water and birds. The European Food Safety Authority banned the chemical in 2008.
Hi-Cane was last re-assessed in New Zealand in 2006, the EPA saying the reports provided by Mr Levers counted as “significant new information”.
New Zealand Kiwifruit Growers chief executive Nikki Johnson previously said the industry took spraying compliance “very seriously”, and the majority of growers followed best practice. The industry was continuing to investigate alternatives to Hi-Cane, and had seen some positive results with new products.
Mr Levers began his campaign after his dogs became ill and he found dead ducks and eels in the Puketotara Stream, which supplies some of Kerikeri’s drinking water. He believed the cause was Hi-Cane drift from a neighbouring orchard. Industry guidelines prohibit use of the spray in windy conditions.
Ms Johnson said kiwifruit growing could become uneconomic in Northland if the spray is banned, Hi-Cane being essential to ensuring economicallyviable levels of production, especially after a warm winters.