Iwi say mussel spat venture could reduce reliance on wind

A group of Far North iwi is setting up a mussel spat venture they say will reduce a multi-million-dollar industry's reliance on the vagaries of the wind.

Te Aupōuri fisheries general manager Penetaui Kleskovic said New Zealand's greenshell mussel industry relied almost entirely on spat - or baby mussels - collected from Ninety Mile Beach over a 12-day period each year during easterly winds.

As well as leaving the $600 million industry at the mercy of wind direction, Kleskovic said the social licence to keep harvesting spat "would not last forever".

The harvest involved collecting hundreds of tonnes of seaweed, to which the spat was attached, from Ninety Mile Beach/Te Oneroa-a-Tōhē.

To reduce the reliance on wild-caught spat, iwi were planning a spat farm off the Far North's east coast.

The joint venture, called Akau, would also allow expansion of the greenshell mussel industry by increasing the amount of spat available, Kleskovic said.

Associate Regional Development Minister Mark Patterson said the government's Regional Infrastructure Fund was providing a $4.5 million loan to get the spat nursery up and running.

The loan would "help overcome barriers to growth in the sector and make New Zealand's spat supply more reliable", he said.

Iwi would contribute $1.3m in co-funding.

"The New Zealand mussel industry is a high value food and export sector that relies heavily on wild-caught spat. That supply is often unpredictable leading to shortages and limiting the ability of our mussel farmers to fully utilise their consented marine space," Patterson said.

In stage one, 90 spat lines would be secured to the sea floor by screw anchors off Houhora Bay, just north of Houhora Harbour entrance.

Those lines were expected to produce around 700 tonnes of spat per year.

The farm could later be expanded to 150 lines.

Kleskovic said the iwi signed up to the venture so far were Te Aupōuri, Te Rarawa, Ngāi Takoto and Ngāti Kahu, but the door was open to Ngāti Kuri.

Te Aupōuri Fisheries Management would run the day-to-day operations but the profits would be split equally among the iwi partners.

He said the fast-track consent application was due to be lodged in the next fortnight.

Te Aupōuri already had a farm producing mussel seed with the twin goals of creating jobs and boosting export earnings, he said.

Patterson said the loan aligned with the Government's Aquaculture Development Plan, which aimed to grow the industry to $3 billion in annual revenue by 2035.

The loan could not be drawn down until resource consent had been granted, he said.