The country’s grape growers have confirmed the need for an industry body to oversee its side of the winemaking process during difficult times by voting overwhelming in favour of keeping a levy on the grapes they sell.

The levy – which is 0.75% of the farm gate selling price for grapes – raises just under $2 million a year, with the money used to fund research and information gathering carried out by the New Zealand Grape Growers Council.

The council’s 600 levy paying members need to vote on whether or not to continue with the levy every six years and the most recent vote saw a continuation of the levy supported by 86.7% of grower voters by number and 88.7% by value of levies paid in past financial year.

Council president Stuart Smith told NBR the support for the organization shown through the levy showed that the organization was more necessary than ever before.

“The industry is going through difficult times and that just makes having an industry body as necessary as ever. It’s times like these, when we’ve all been battling through the financial crisis and recession, when we all need to pull together.”

The grape growing industry is still struggling to deal with oversupply issues caused by two massive harvests, as well as concerns over the ever-fluctuating dollar.

Mr Smith – who also serves as chair of New Zealand Winegrowers – said it was still early days for the 2010 harvest, but it was on track to be below last year’s record haul of 280,000 tonnes.

Even with those concerns, he said the biggest issue facing the wine industry and other exports was that kiwi dollar.

“It’s still one of the biggest concerns facing the whole industry and should be of concern to all exporters. If the recovery is going to be export-led, something will need to be done about the volatility of the dollar.”