Vege price hike probable after flooding

Last summer it was drought, now oods have ravaged crops around the country - and growers say vegetable price hikes are the likely result.

Shon Fong says February’s deluge was the worst rain he’s seen before. His family business, AH Gorn & Sons, has been based in the Pukekohe area since the 1950s.

“It was continuous for 24 hours and the ground just couldn’t take it,” Shon says.

His elds have lines gouged out of the soil by ood waters. Fong said onions, which had been harvested and left in the open to dry, were left strewn across the paddocks and an adjoining road.

“We’ve lost about 20 per cent to 30 per cent of our harvest.” e unusually dry conditions made it challenging for those in the industry, with falling yields and increased overheads to pay for irrigation.

He says after last year’s drought, it’s hard to take.

In May last year, the Ministry of Primary Industries declared the drought a “medium-scale adverse event” in south Auckland and the Waikato and announced a support package for a ected farmers and growers.

“We’ve gone from one extreme to the other.”

South Auckland’s horticulture industry centres on the Pukekohe Hub, 4359 hectares of some of New Zealand’s most fertile and productive land.

According to Auckland Council’s 2019 Climate Action Framework generates $327 million a year - the equivalent of 26 per cent of NZ’s total domestic value of vegetable production.

Shon says he’s convinced the latest ood damage in Pukekohe will lead to an increase in the price of all green vegetables, potatoes and onions.

“A lot of them have been under water and they won’t be able to harvest them.”

Jivan Produce director Bharat Jivan has been outspoken about the ongoing e ects of climate change on the industry. e Pukekohe-based family business has been operating in the area for 60 years and grows potatoes, onions, lettuce, broccoli, cauli ower and pumpkins.

“Last year we had a drought and this year we’re getting endless rain,” he says. “We are going to have to deal with climate changethere’s no doubt about that.”

But Bharat says his own business wasn’t as a ected by the ooding as other market gardeners in the Pukekohe area.

“Some growers had the ood water go right through their crops.”

Bharat says Pukekohe’s market gardeners will adapt, despite the latest setback. However, he said an increase in vegetable prices after the rain and ooding was a very real possibility.