Jane Nees BOP Regional Councillor www.janenees.co.nz

There has been a lot of community concern over the last few years about negative health effects of Hicane spray.

Hicane is sprayed onto kiwifruit vines to encourage bud-burst and achieve consistent size and yield of fruit. In 2009, a group of concerned parties – including the kiwifruit growing and spray contracting industry, the Bay of Plenty Regional Council, iwi and community groups – established the Hicane/Spraydrift Action Group to identify and encourage use of spray best practice and to monitor how well it was being applied across the region.

The Hicane spraying season is well underway and this group is in regular contact to discuss how the industry is performing.

The good news is all parties involved are committed to improving spraying operations in the Bay of Plenty. A key area is notifying neighbours spraying is planned. This includes initiatives like telephoning the night before spraying is programmed, putting out signage and cones and covering orchard letterboxes with bright yellow bags where spraying is underway.

I have been very pleased to see these as I have driven past orchards down my road and have appreciated the telephone call I received alerting me to spraying.

The bad news, however, is complaints are still being received about spraying. Of the complains received so far this season. 55 per cent relate to non-notification. Signage, spray drift and incorrect notification equally share the remaining 45 per cent with 15 per cent each. These complaints are followed up and a range of actions may result including formal warnings, education and advice.

It is important we continually improve our performance in this area for the wellbeing of the community. It is not just Hicane sprays we need to be vigilant about; with increasing use of copper sprays as a Psa control measure, orchardists need to be aware it is also a legal requirement to notify and place signage along road frontages when applying copper to their orchard.

The regional council hot line number for complaints about spraying is 0800 884 883.

I encourage you to report any spray-related issues. Bit-by-bit, we will achieve best practice across the industry.

If you have views about this or any other issue please email neesj@xtra.co.nz