Strawberry season hangs on migrant workers

Consumers could be left with a bitter taste in their mouths as an immigration decision delaying migrant workers could mean higher strawberry prices.

It is understood that Immigration Minister Iain LeesGalloway will bring the issue to Cabinet on Monday, which will then decide how many additional workers will be allowed into New Zealand. In Parliament on Wednesday, Lees-Galloway said his decision was ‘‘a couple of more sleeps’’ away. But early season strawberry and asparagus growers said it comes too late for their businesses. ‘‘That is insulting, this is my livelihood and that of 1200 of my workers,’’ Francie Perry, owner of Perrys Berrys in Auckland – one of New Zealand’s largest strawberry producers – told Stuff.

Lees-Galloway, who is understood to have assured businesses in April that he was looking to make an early decision, said the decision wasn’t late.

It was made every September, he told Stuff yesterday. He said the issue was not being ignored.

Perry said last season she left 250 tonnes of strawberries to rot because of a lack of workers.

During the week before Christmas last year, Perry said she had to call around supermarkets to say she could not supply them.

Prices doubled overnight, she said. The annual RSE decision – which sets the number of workers allowed into the country on a short-term visa, to work in the horticulture and viticulture industries – was done too late for strawberries in particular, she said.