Roadmap set to double hort exports by 2035
It's critical that the horticulture sector works together as part of a goal to double the sector’s exports by 2035.
Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor has urged growers to pay people better.
O’Connor was addressing 600 people at The Horticulture Conference 2019 at Mystery Creek, near Hamilton. Its theme was ‘Our Food Future’.
O’Connor says despite the kiwifruit sector’s latest bumper season, it still struggles to recruit workers -- illogical in a strict market environment.
Overseas labour will always be needed, but more must be done to get the right young New Zealanders with the right skills into horticulture. And dollars are a factor, O’Connor says.
“Millennials have access to all the information they ever want. They are making choices based on values and based on their perceived future.
“It may not be what they hope it will be, but they have aspirations to have a better world and life and some of that comes down to the returns they get for their efforts.
“They are smart and have lots of options. So to attract and retain them in horticulture and other primary sectors we will have to pay them well.”
O’Connor says the industry must also give them pathways to a sound career and a reason to do what they want to do.
Another challenge for horticulture is to retain quality land to grow crops. Pukekohe, notably, and other cities, are under pressure to succumb to urban sprawl.
But the Government will not sit back and watch this happen, O’Connor says. It is now planning to protect high class and highly productive soils.
“I was alarmed to read a recent report showing more than 10,500ha of such land is already designated by local councils to be converted for use for housing.
“While we need more houses, places like Auckland should grow up not out. I feel strongly about continued urban sprawl, because it encroaches on our highly productive land and it adds to the complexities of infrastructure.”
NZPork has appointed Auckland-based Paul Bucknell as its new chair.
The Government claims to have delivered on its election promise to protect productive farmland from emissions trading scheme (ETS) but red meat farmers aren’t happy.
Foot and Mouth Disease outbreaks could have a detrimental impact on any country's rural sector, as seen in the United Kingdom's 2000 outbreak that saw the compulsory slaughter of over six million animals.
The Ministry for the Environment is joining as a national award sponsor in the Ballance Farm Environment Awards (BFEA from next year).
Kiwis are wasting less of their food than they were two years ago, and this has been enough to push New Zealand’s total household food waste bill lower, the 2025 Rabobank KiwiHarvest Food Waste survey has found.
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