ZESPRI Sustains Horticulture Programme Legacy

ZESPRI Sustains the Legacy with Horticulture Scholarship Programme

ZESPRI International is launching a scholarship programme as part of this year’s New Zealand kiwifruit industry’s centennial celebrations to encourage secondary school leavers to pursue a tertiary qualification and career in horticulture.

Seven scholarships, valued at $3,000 each, will be offered annually to high calibre secondary school students from the main kiwifruit growing regions who intend to study fulltime for a degree or diploma in horticulture at a New Zealand university or polytechnic.

“Products, pride and passion are our strength, our heritage, our reason for celebrating not just an industry but the people who have built it and the people who are living it every day,” ZESPRI Chairman Craig Greenlees said in announcing the programme in Wanganui where Isabel Fraser, credited with introducing Chinese gooseberry seeds to New Zealand in 1904, had been headmistress of Wanganui Girls College.

Today’s billion dollar kiwifruit export industry can trace its origins to the handful of seeds brought back from Yichang in China by Isabel Fraser, nurtured by Alexander Allison, cultivated by Hayward Wright and eventually commercially planted in Te Puke by Jim MacLoughlin and the Bayliss brothers. The first Chinese gooseberries, as kiwifruit were then called, were exported in 1952 and from those small beginnings a major new industry and New Zealand’s biggest horticultural export earner was born.

“The New Zealand kiwifruit industry has a rich past and a successful present with a sixth consecutive record financial performance in 2003-2004 and acknowledgement by our peers of being the category leader world wide, established first with ZESPRI™ GREEN Kiwifruit and now extended with exclusive ZESPRI™ GOLD Kiwifruit. But, we cannot be complacent. We must also build a strong and vibrant future,” Mr Greenless said. “Fostering and supporting the education of young people wishing to pursue a career in horticulture is one way ZESPRI can secure the legacy and help create a sustainable future for the kiwifruit industry.

“It is therefore fitting that in the year the New Zealand kiwifruit industry celebrates its first 100 years, we will for the first time, offer seven scholarships to secondary school students choosing to study horticulture at a New Zealand tertiary institute. The scholarships will be offered at the end of each school year for study in the following year.”

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