This season's avocado harvest at a predicted 2.9 million trays, is half that of last season's, graphically illustrating the major issue the industry faces because of the biennial cropping of its trees.

Last season was the biggest ever with 6.16 million trays, up from 3 million in 2010/2011.

Avocado Growers' Association Inc chairman John Schnackenberg says the record volumes earned $82million, $63 million from exports and $19 million from the domestic market and processing. 'But growers will be struggling to see half of that through their front gate, and therein lies growers' united frustration – poor performance in market and high off orchard costs.”

The industry had agreed on an upper supply limit of 2.8 m trays into Australia but actually exported more than 3 million trays which probably cost growers $3 a tray, he says.

NZAGA acknowledges there was lack of clarity over its accountability for monitoring and reporting market performance and exporters acted independently when managing crop flows to the Australian market.

John says the solutions are not easy and developing new markets is challenging for exporters due to inconsistent supply from orchards and because of growers' desire to chase the high returns previously available from Australia ahead of supporting potentially lower returns from new markets.

However chief executive officer Jen Scoular says if NZAGA is successful in its bid to gain $2.6million in funding through the Primary Growth Partnership scheme, answers to overcoming the problems of irregular supply and reliance on one market may be a little closer.

If the business case currently being prepared for presentation to the Ministry for Primary Industries is successful, the avocado industry will be the first horticultural industry to receive such funding support.

The five year funding, which the industry will match dollar for dollar, would speed up work on biennial bearing, improving industry capability , information sharing and collaboration, and would help open up opportunities in the South East Asian markets, she says.

'There is an excellent opportunity for New Zealand to supply highly nutritious, responsibility grown avocados to meet the demands of the increasingly wealthy and health conscious South East Asian market.”

Research into how to mitigate irregular bearing is underway and includes a pruning trial involving 12 orchards focused on balancing vegetative and reproductive growth and finding the optimum time to prune. Research into eleven new cultivars and root stocks has been going on since 2007 and is showing some promising early results.

NZAGA presented a five year plan to the industry during consultation around the renewal of the commodity levy. Growers strongly supported the fact that a five year plan had been developed and in September voted to renew the commodity levy for a further six years.