Producing kai in the footprints of our forebears
Ngāi Tukairangi Trust is the biggest Māori kiwifruit grower in NZ. Te Awanui Huka Pak is a collective of 19 Māori trusts founded in 1984 who principally grow kiwifruit in the western Bay of Plenty (the largest Māori kiwifruit grower collective).
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On the Matapihi Peninsula you will not find high-density urban housing, but green fields with hectares of kiwifruit growing in the same soils that have traditionally produced kai for peoples in this region.
Ratahi tells us of the strategy devised by his tūpuna to join Māori land blocks together and cultivate a product that could combat urban sprawl. The success of this strategy can be seen today in the cultivation blocks that prevail on the peninsula, as well as the Te Awanui Huka Pak collective.Kiwifruit is a lucrative market despite precarity in its early years, and growers in the Bay of Plenty region benefit from a climate that enables early marketing of the fruit.