THE CHIEF EXECUTIVE
Covid-19 has changed the world The world has changed and probably forever. By Mike Chapman Chief Executive : Horticulture New Zealand
Before Covid-19 we lived in a global world where there were few restrictions on travel. There was labour mobility across the world and our integrated global supply chains operated without the restrictions we now face. Covid-19 has created two very significant challenges (among many others) for the horticulture industry: a lack of airfreight capacity and massive restrictions on seasonal worker mobility. The way forward, the solutions, are not easy to work out. These are new problems and they are subject to the ever changing Covid situation. As we went into Covid lockdown, the New Zealand horticulture chief executives and business managers met daily with the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) to solve the multitude of problems and to work out the best way forward for horticulture. This worked well and heralded a new era of working with MPI. We worked as a team and not as separate organisations, one being the government and the other being our collective horticulture industry. It was our MPI representative who recommended that we have a joint government and horticulture workshop to work out a Covid Recovery Strategy for Horticulture. In fast order this was developed and the Minister launched it on 16 July 2020. It has eleven workstreams that cover everything that makes horticulture a success — and everything that we need to keep making horticulture a success.
...It has eleven workstreams that cover everything that makes horticulture a success — and everything that we need to keep making horticulture a success 4
The ORCHARDIST : AUGUST 2020
The founding principle is that for horticulture to lead in our country’s Covid recovery there needs to be a new partnership developed with the government: industry led, government enabled. How we did business pre-Covid will not be enough. We cannot operate as separate entities. We need to operate together as one to develop the support and programmes needed for sustained growth, and most importantly for feeding New Zealand and the world fresh and healthy food. It is how we work together that will make the necessary difference. Our workshop identified the following principles to achieve this: Respect Aspirational
Focus Openness Cohesive
Workshop principles for success
“Greater Good” Mindset
Honest and Transparent
Workstream One is focused on labour. We have put together a team from industry, iwi and government with representatives from the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment (MBIE), Ministry of Social Development (MSD) and MPI. It has dual focus on both seasonal and permanent labour, and career development and attraction of New Zealanders to meet our labour needs. It links into our career progression manager network. See page 17 for a one-page explanation of those involved in this network and what they do. Through this workstream we are looking to expand and further resource this network. A further key part of this workstream, which is now fully underway, is how to meet the coming season’s labour challenge for harvest and pruning.
