PRESIDENT’S WORD
2021: A NEW YEAR AND NEW DECADE Words by Barry O’Neil, President : HortNZ
As we begin another New Year, if we review what eventuated over the last 12 months, we hopefully have plenty of good reflections and not too many bad ones. At the same time, some of us will have thought about taking a different approach to try and avoid what we didn’t like or didn’t want to happen last year. If I think about what would be on a grower’s New Year’s wish list, most of us would have many issues in common, and top of the list would be labour – affordable and reliable labour! And no more hail please, and enough rain (at the right time). Let’s also have consistently high demand and high prices for our produce, along with sea and airfreight reliability. This year 2021 is also the start of a new decade according to the Gregorian calendar, as this calendar started with year 1 BC and not year O BC. We have not only welcomed in a New Year, but also a new decade. I think it’s also useful to muse on what would be on our New Decade’s wish list. Things that we would want to see happen in horticulture over the next 10 years. Would our New Decade’s list be the same as our New Year’s list? I really hope it’s not the same, as I believe over the next 10 years we should be setting our sights much higher as a sector that has so much future potential and opportunity.
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NZGROWER : FEBRUARY 2021
So what are some of the things that I believe we should be setting our sights on and achieving over the next 10 years? A Lighter Touch, the research programme with which most of our sector is currently involved, must deliver the tools to enable those currently dependent on hard chemicals to move to biological and softer chemical options. We must refocus our efforts on reducing any reliance we have on hard chemicals, whether that be by plant breeding, changing our growing systems, or replacement with more acceptable alternatives. I suggest that by the end of the decade ‘hard’ or just as importantly ‘perceived to be hard’ chemicals – including glyphosate, paraquat, hydrogen cyanamide and mancozeb – will not be accepted by consumers for use in food production systems in most developed countries. We therefore have 10 years to find acceptable alternatives. So let’s not spend all our effort arguing for their retention, and in doing so waste 10 years of the time that’s needed to find the necessary alternative options. Automation needs to be a priority focus to deliver practical and affordable ways to remove the hard physical labour aspects of growing, harvesting and packaging. There are some really smart kiwi businesses working in this space that are focused on delivering solutions for New Zealand growers, so let’s get behind them and support them. But automation will never solve all our labour issues. As a result, we need to ensure we have employment strategies that we can rely on, and not run the risk
of the labour tap being turned off at short notice, as has happened due to Covid-19. We will still need to have in place the very successful (and World Bank acclaimed) Recognised Seasonal Employer (RSE) programme, to give us full confidence that we have the labour we need for growth, and very importantly, to support our Pasifika communities. But in addition, within the food and fibre sector, horticulture should be positioning itself as the employer of choice, because we offer quality permanent roles, respect our workers and treat them well, and welcome diversity. Water storage systems will have to significantly expand in order to address climate change impacts. At the same time, production areas will need to increase to deliver the economic gains and employment the country needs from our sector. I think new proposals should look closely at the strategy used by the successful Te Tai Tokerau Water Trust model. This initiative is enabling 7,000ha of new horticulture land to be developed in Northland, and provides significantly improved employment opportunities for the local community. We have been arguing about the importance of new water storage schemes for years, but in reality very little has eventuated. In Northland, it only took five years to get approval and to access government funding, so why can’t this model work in other regions of New Zealand? Māori trusts will become an even greater force driving growth in our sector. In this decade, we will need to work in partnership to address and
