A Northland iwi’s commercial arm has been given a $1.74 million government loan to develop an avocado orchard on 20 hectares of its land south of Dargaville.

Kaipara iwi Te Uri o Hau has been given funding through its commercial arm Renaissance Group Ltd from $24m of investment from the Regional Strategic Partnership Fund (RSPF) into 10 diverse projects across the country.

The RSPF loan is to develop a 20-hectare haas avocado orchard near Te Kōpuru, south of Dargaville. It’s the only Northland project to benefit from this latest round of RSPF funding.

The Renaissance Group is the commercial arm of Te Uri o Hau Settlement Trust, so the project itself will be run through this commercial entity.

The trust was approached for comment and to find out more details of the orchard plan, but had not responded.

The Government is continuing to invest in our regional economies with the latest RSPF funding, Regional Development Minister Kiri Allan said.

“Our regions are the backbone of our economy and today’s announcement continues to build on the Government’s investment to boost regional economic resilience and set up our communities so they can continue to thrive in the future,” Allan said.

The projects are funded through the RSPF, which aims to support regional economies to become more productive, resilient, inclusive and sustainable by delivering local approaches tailored to regions’ particular needs and advantages.

She said since coming into government, $3.2 billion has been paid out from the Regional Economic Development and Investment Unit’s eight funds to support regional economies and 1148 projects have been completed nationwide.