Seed funding: Govt spends up on rural plant nursery

Thursday, 15 March 2018, 4:40 pm
Article: RNZ

John Boynton, Te Manu Korihi Reporter

john.boynton@radionz.co.nz

Bay of Plenty village Minginui is to get a funding boost of almost $6 million from the government's provincial growth fund.

Photo: 123rf

Regional economic development minister Shane Jones annouced the funding this morning at Minginui, deep in the Whirinaki Forest Park.

Mr Jones said Minginui nursery would receive $5.8m over the next three years to grow up to one million native seedlings every year and would support the government's plan to plant one billion trees in the next ten years.

Mr Jones said the funding would help expand the business and provide 90 jobs for the community.

"What will flow is an output of at least a million native trees [annually], the absoption of scores and scores of young people into an enterprise that's scientifically proven."

Minginui is a forestry village, but when the local sawmill closed in the late 1980s the population fell and only 300 people live there now.

The plant nursery, owned by local iwi Ngāti Whare, has been open for 18 months employing nine people.

The funding will allow it to expand and provide up to 90 jobs for the community.

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