increase font size
Leaderbrand chief executive Richard Burke.
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."
Recent storm damage to roading infrastructure around New Zealand has prompted a call for the Government to change the settings for funding rural roads - with the aim of providing more money to make them more resilient to adverse events.
Major New Zealand fresh produce grower is tapping AI to manage weeds on one of its farms.
A pillar of New Zealand's horticultural industry, Dr Stuart Davis, was farewelled at a well-attended funeral service in Tuakau, South Auckland, on December 18.
Spinach is NZ's favourite leafy green, according to the Department of Statistics.
Gisborne's record hot dry summer weather has produced rewards for one of the country's largest commercial growers based in the region - Leaderbrand.
LIC shareholders have elected a new North Island representative to the co-operative's Board, along with five representatives to its Shareholder Reference Group (SRG), following the company's Annual Meeting held in Invercargill.
Farmers across parts of Southland and South Otago are continuing to deal with difficult conditions after a prolonged run of wet weather, with pressure building around feed supply, stock management, pasture damage, farm infrastructure and everyday workloads.
Federated Farmers says it welcomes Labour's commitment to reviewing the Sharemilking Agreements Act, calling on other major parties to do the same.
For Canterbury dairy farmers Sian Meijer and Rick Wobben, wearable technology has become one of their most valuable on-farm tools - helping manage 1850 cows across an expansive, high-performing dairy operation while improving efficiency, mating outcomes and day-to-day decision making.
Fonterra has unveiled its annual results for the 2026 financial year, posting $27 billion in revenue and close to $20 billion returned to New Zealand farmer owners and unit holders.
The first major update to the Dairy Cattle Code of Welfare in more than a decade has been released, marking what DairyNZ describes as an important step in ensuring animal welfare standards continue to evolve alongside scientific evidence and on-farm realities.
