Summerfruit season summary

SUMMERFRUIT UPDATE

Summerfruit season summary

Kate Hellstrom : Summerfruit NZ chief executive

Despite the challenges of a severe labour shortage and the looming threat of Omicron, the summerfruit season was, in general, a fairly good one for the majority of growers and exporters.

Overall, the summerfruit crop was lighter than was forecast pre-season. The yield was patchy in some orchards and good in others, so it has been an up and down season for the sector. All the growing regions had too much rain at various times of the season. Hawke’s Bay had excess rain early in the season, so struggled to achieve good quality fruit in December, and while January was hot and dry, the returning wet, humid weather in February led to rot and fungal diseases in much of the remaining crop. Marlborough had a particularly tough season with flooding in July and further heavy rainfall in September and October which affected pollination, resulting in the lowest fruit yield in decades and a shortage of cherries in the district. Central Otago also had some wet weather at times but luckily avoided a repeat of last year’s extreme rainfall event.

Export volumes of all summerfruit, except nectarines, were the highest of the past three years. The export cherry crop was 3,200 tonnes, compared to a 2,500-tonne crop last year. The cherry export season had an average start before Christmas, was fairly strong in early to mid-January, and dropped off faster than other years at the tail end of the season. The challenges of airfreight capacity continued to hamper the export sector, despite the ongoing support of the Government’s International Air Freight Capacity scheme. Many growers, when faced with freight rates making it challenging to get into overseas markets, saw the domestic market as a better option this season. The domestic season went quite well, with strong sales volumes and buoyant pricing. While in some cases fruit quality has not been quite as good as it could be, growers have continued to respond well to the consistent message from retailers and wholesalers about the need to supply good quality fruit. In general, growers have been relatively happy with their returns this year, particularly those who have rejuvenated their fruit varieties and pulled out nonperforming crops. The severe labour shortage defined the season as it did in 2020–21. Growers have been under a lot of pressure and stress levels have been high due to the challenges of finding and retaining staff. Almost all growers struggled to attract enough pickers and packhouse staff; while some required an additional handful of workers, others were down over a hundred staff or have had a shortfall of up to fifty percent of their workforce in some cases. Even those with just enough staff, who ultimately were able to harvest their full crop, remained on edge for the entire season. The looming threat of Omicron also defined the season; orchards and packhouses had to adjust to the Red ‘traffic light’ restrictions and continued to operate while ensuring that their workforce stayed safe, by closely following all protocols such as workforce bubbles, mask-wearing, gathering restrictions and the use of vaccine passes.

Looking ahead, the 2022–23 season appears more promising as New Zealand’s borders slowly reopen

Looking ahead, the 2022–23 season appears more promising as New Zealand’s borders slowly reopen. Working holiday visas will start to be issued later this year, and we look forward to welcoming new travellers to our regions who will hopefully help with the harvest next season. Summerfruit NZ also welcomes the news that the Government has increased the cap on workers from the Pacific under the Recognised Seasonal Employer (RSE) scheme to 16,000 workers. This cap increase will support the summerfruit sector, and wider horticulture industry, in the longer term and will help relieve some of the stress that growers have been under. While these changes are too late to help with this season’s summerfruit harvest, I hope that next year will prove to be more productive and less stressful on growers and exporters.

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