Biosecurity staff at Kiwifruit Vine Health have produced a report that shows a fruit fly incursion in prime kiwifruit growing territory would cost the industry hundreds of millions of dollars.
Matt Dyck, a biosecurity analyst with KVH, has summarised existing economic models to provide the kiwifruit industry with an estimate of how much different fruit fly incursions could cost.
He says while an incursion anywhere in the country would be costly - a breeding population of fruit flies in Bay of Plenty would be a huge financial blow.
"What I found is that there is a huge range and any fruit fly incursion is going to be expensive. One to tow million is the best case scenario for the find of a single individual, like what we had in Whangarei.
"The worst case scenario is that we might find a breeding population in Te Puke, right in the heart of our industry and that could cost the Bay of Plenty horticultural industries upwards of $430 million."
He says the concern is markets imposing access restrictions when there is a breeding population, which is what happened in 1996 when such a population was found in Auckland.
