Zespri Group's outgoing chief executive Lain Jager has told the High Court that the banking sector was supportive of the kiwifruit industry when it was reeling from the outbreak of the Psa virus, helping limit the number of foreclosures from growers forced to rip out infected vines. Jager is a Crown witness in a negligence suit against the Ministry for Primary Industries that claims it allowed Pseudomonas syringae pv actinidiae, better known as Psa, into New Zealand in 2009 on a shipment of pollen, resulting in 80 percent of kiwifruit orchards nationwide becoming infected at an estimated cost in lost exports of up to $ 930 million.
