Leaderbrand goes electric!
One of the largest horticulture commercial growing companies in NZ has just begun using a new electric harvester and self-propelled cargo platforms to operate in its new mega greenhouse.
A leading horticulturist is questioning whether enough is being done to infrastructure in NZ to keep pace with the expansion of agriculture in all its forms.
Richard Burke, chief executive of Leaderbrand - a large horticultural operation based in Gisborne and other parts of NZ, says there's no question that in the past 12 months, on the East Coast and at another of their major growing areas at Pukekohe, weather conditions have been extreme. He says this has had an impact on getting plants to grow. Burke adds that the weather has also impacted on roads and other infrastructure.
"My question is whether the present infrastructure is up to scratch to meet our needs," he told Rural News.
"When we built road roads, we built them for 30 tonne trucks - now we are now putting 50 to 60 tonne trucks down them. I know technology has come a long way but have we really adjusted our roads to deal with what we are trying to achieve with them? We see it on country roads around Gisborne that were built for one or two stock trucks a month and are now having to handle forestry harvesting at 30 trucks a day."
Burke says another thing that concerns him is the impact of driving up production. He says there are farming and horticultural operations based on land that was previously seen as marginal. He points out that if one doesn't get caught out by weather initially, the chances are that it may be assumed that such operations are reliable in the future.
"Then we forget quite quickly when things go wrong, but nature is nature."
Burke says in his experience, there have always been major weather events, but the impacts of these now are being highlighted by growing systems and less appropriate infrastructure. What he is seeing is that the risk of growing a crop now is much higher than it was, especially with the increased cost of fertiliser and fuel and lack of people to harvest it.
"All these factors are in the back of your mind when you are running your planting plans. I would suggest that a lot more people have become a bit more risk adverse because you can't afford to leave crops behind now," he explains.
"You can't afford to bypass a crop, so when you are little bit risk adverse you don't have so much supply around you and when an event does occur the loss can be greater."
South Waikato farm manager Ben Purua’s amazing transformation from gang life to milking cows was rewarded with the Ahuwhenua Young Maori Farmer award last night.
Bankers have been making record profits in the last few years, but those aren’t the only records they’ve been breaking, says Federated Farmers vice president Richard McIntyre.
The 2023-24 season has been a roller coaster ride for Waikato dairy farmers, according to Federated Farmers dairy section chair, Mathew Zonderop.
Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) director general Ray Smith says job cuts announced this morning will not impact the way the Ministry is organised or merge business units.
Scales Corporation is acquiring a number of orchard assets from Bostock Group.
Family and solidarity shone through at the 75 years of Ferdon sale in Otorohanga last month.
OPINION: This old mutt well remembers the wailing, whining and gnashing of teeth by former West Coast MP and Labour…
OPINION: Your canine crusader gets a little fed up with the some in media, union hacks, opposition politicians and hard-core…