Big crops and big challenges for Bay of Plenty growers

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ROUNDUP Big crops and big challenges for Bay of Plenty growers

The Bay of Plenty’s three major fruit growing industries, kiwifruit, avocado and blueberries, all produced record crops in 2021 but also faced the challenges of labour shortages and the impacts of Covid-19.

By Elaine Fisher

Chairman of New Zealand Kiwifruit Growers Inc (NZKGI), Mark Mayston, says successfully harvesting and packing fruit during the season, which produced an estimated record 177 million export trays, was a remarkable effort and a tribute to all involved given the challenges of labour and Covid-19.

A higher than usual rate of absenteeism was identified in the workplace during the 2021 harvest and was a major concern. Mark says NZKGI has been carrying out surveys to understand the workforce, what hours people want to work and how the industry can meet their needs. “It seems that wage rates have increased to the point where some people are only working three-quarters of the time they used to, to earn the money they need. It was thought that by paying more, productivity would increase, but that’s not true in all cases.

NZKGI has been carrying out surveys to understand the workforce, what hours people want to work and how the industry can meet their needs

“NZKGI spends a lot of time and money on employment. The $100,000 labour attraction campaign we run annually is our biggest spend and the programme starts again shortly to encourage New Zealanders to come and work for us.”

The industry is fortunate that Zespri charters its own ships, but even so, some vessels have experienced lengthy delays waiting to berth and discharge fruit. “So far there have been few fruit quality issues in the markets which is a credit to the work of the post-harvest sector,” says Mark. A highlight of 2021 for NZKGI was the strong support from growers for its levy to increase from 1 cent a tray to 1.1 cents, which Mark says is a vote of confidence that the organisation is working hard for growers, including continually monitoring the performance of Zespri. BerryCo general manager, Alice Moore, says the 2021 harvest of blueberries was up 70% by mid-November. About 80ha of blueberry crops are grown by 30 growers in the Bay of Plenty, the far North and Motueka. Harvest, which ends just after Christmas, started early this season.

“An extended period of cloudy weather, high humidity and mild night temperatures, quickly followed by hot weather, amplified the movement of the berries into harvest,” Alice says. “More fruit coming through at the same time created challenges as picking berries is very labour intensive.” BerryCo’s quality standards require fruit to be coolstored within 20 to 30 minutes of being picked, which means growers need a facility on their orchard and enough staff to meet that timeframe.

Export fruit is sent by airfreight to Vietnam, Thailand, Taiwan and Singapore and other smaller markets in Malaysia and Indonesia.

...the 2021 harvest of blueberries was up 70% by midNovember

In October 2021 BerryCo launched ‘Blue Royal’, a new premium brand offering high quality super-sized and super-tasty locally grown blueberries to New Zealanders and export markets. NZ Avocado chief executive, Jen Scoular, says market conditions in 2021 have been very challenging with high levels of supply in New Zealand’s largest export market, Australia. “Western Australia, which has a similar seasonality to New Zealand, is forecasting an 8 million tray harvest compared to 2.5 million trays last season,” Jen says. “The very long lockdowns in Australia have slowed demand, cut out food service and there were some bad Covid-19 outbreaks impacting people working in the fruit markets, all of which contributed to a sluggish market. “Demand for New Zealand avocados is good in Asian markets, however ongoing freight and logistics disruption increases the risks of avocados from New Zealand arriving in non-saleable condition.” Nearly two million trays of New Zealand avocados are forecast for export to Asia this season, up from 535,000 trays last season. The New Zealand market is currently under immense supply pressure with weekly volumes harvested for local market 50–75% higher than last season. Global shipping disruption is expected to continue at some level for the next couple of years, Jen says. Australian avocado supply is forecast to continue to increase dramatically over the next five years with some estimates stating that 50% of the planted hectares of avocados in Australia are still yet to reach maturity and produce a crop.

Nearly two million trays of New Zealand avocados are forecast for export to Asia this season

On the plus side, Jen says lower retail prices of avocados this season will attract new consumers to the avocado category in New Zealand, which will help grow demand. Record export volumes to Asia are helping to increase New Zealand’s avocado presence in markets of future importance such as China, South Korea, India and Taiwan.

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