Industry in north based on solanum

Press, 28 October 1977, Page 16

Industry in north based on solanum

The development of a new multi-million-dollar export industry in North Taranaki was announced earlier in the month.

It will be based on the native shrub poroporo, also known as bulli-bulli and solanum. A raw material used in pharmaceutical products will be extracted frcm the shrub and processed at a plant to be built at Waitara. A joint venture com* pany is being formed by Fletcher Holdings, Ltd, Ivon Watkins-Dow, Ltd, and Diosynth, an affiliate of the Akzo Pharma group, of the Netherlands. The partners said in a joint statement that the project was well past the planning stage, though it was still contingent in some respects on final Government approval. After several years of research, the first substantial crop was due to be harvested this month. Cropping and processing will be developed progressively over the next two years until fullscale production is achieved.

The total output of the plant will be exported and will earn several million dollars a year in foreign exchange. The shrub, which holds the key to this development, carries the botancial name, Solanum aviculare. From it will be extracted solasodine, the starting material for a wide range of pharmaceutical steroids with applications as diverse as fertility control and the relief of rheumatoid arth-i ritis. Mr L. C. Ryan, an

executive director of Fletcher Holdings, said the partners’ decision to proceed followed the success of trials carried out at a pilot plant at Bell Block, New Plymouth. Largescale cropping trials and extraction experiments by Fletcher and Diosynth had enabled Ivon WatkinsDow’s agronomic research work to be taken to commercial realisation.

about processing and marketing, said Mr Ryan. Plantings of solanum crops will be extended progressively until. 1981, when some 1000 hectares will be under cultivation. Initially the land will be leased from local farmers, but once the crop has become established it will be offered for contract growing. The crop is grown in hedgerows about half a metre apart and is harvested by a forage harvester.

Fletcher’s agriculture division was developing the cropping and harvesting techniques and Fletcher Development and Construction would build the processing plant at Waitara. Diosynth was supplying the joint venture with vital knowledge

The partners say it will offer useful diversification, but the area of land involved will have a relatively insignificant effect on existing farming. The environmental im-

pact on the surrounding area has been carefully considered. No problems will arise from plant effluent, while only standard, non-hormone agricultural chemicals will be used. There will be no aerial use of chemicals. At full operation the company expects to employ'so people, mostly drawn’from the local area. It will be managed by Mr Jan Kloosterman, a 47-year-old chemical engineer from Oss in the Netherlands, where the Akzo Pharma group is headquartered. Earlier this vear Mr Kloosterman visited New Zealand to commission and supervise the pilot plant.