Growers under the pump!

That's the view of new Pukekohe Vegetable Growers Association (PVGA) president Kirit Makan.

Makan told Hort News that growers are anxious. He says they are uncertain what regulations will be imposed on their farming operations around water and land use and the environment.

"We are here to produce fresh and healthy vegetables for New Zealanders and it's getting harder and harder for us," Makan explains.

The PVGA represents 180 growers - covering an area from Warkworth north of Auckland to South Waikato. Most growers are based in the Pukekohe hub - an area comprising 4,359 hectares of some of New Zealand's most fertile and productive soils.

The area's temperate, forgiving climate and proximity to essential transport routes makes it ideally located to supply year-round vegetables to Auckland and the rest of New Zealand.

However, like farmers around the country, PVGA members are also under pressure to make further improvements to farming around fertiliser usage and water quality.

Makan says like other farmers his members use fertiliser to produce marketable yield of crops. He says lowering fertiliser input would push some growers out of business.

"We just don't throw fertiliser down just for the sake of it, we need to put it down to get a marketable crop that we can sell," he adds.

"The economics of that would be I won't have a marketable crop and growing potatoes just wouldn't be viable for me."

Makan says vegetable growers, like other farmers, are keen to reduce their inputs like fertiliser.

He believes, over time, technology will come along and help growers over time reduce their fertiliser footprint.

On water supply, farmers aren't sure what the new regulations will look like.

All growers around Pukekohe have resource consents for bore and ground water takes which will need to be renewed in coming years.

Makan says while Pukekohe has been carved out of the National Policy Statement for water, there are "too many unknowns".