Fundraiser clash hits growers hard
A major supplier of cut daffodils for the Cancer Society Daffodil Day fundraiser says lockdown has come in what would normally be the biggest week of sales for the year.
Daffodil Day was due to take place this Friday, but has been cancelled because of the extension of level 4 lockdown.
Grower John Chamberlain said it would mean the loss of 50 acres of daffodils and about half of his yearly turnover from flowers.
Flowers were considered nonessential under current Government rules, so they could not be sold in supermarkets either, he said.
‘‘They’ve thrown flower growers under the bus.
‘‘They let liquor stores sell alcohol but flower growers can’t do anything. They’ve had 12 months to prepare for this and they actually haven’t worked it out.
’’We’ve lost a whole year’s work with this lockdown.
‘‘It’s not like a normal business where you shut for two weeks and carry on as normal.’’
Earlier this year, the farm in Springston was hit hard by the Canterbury floods. About 150 acres of grass to fatten cattle went under water, Chamberlain said.
United Flower Growers marketing manager Rebecca Jones said any time of year would be hard for growers because flowers were seasonal crops but the cancellation of Daffodil Day was a big issue because many growers put bulbs in the ground specifically for the event.
‘‘A lot of South Island growers are impacted by that.’’
The wider industry had been affected badly too, she said.
UFG had an auction scheduled for today, and had hundreds of thousands of stems from suppliers.
‘‘We offered to give them back to the growers and some collected them but most of them are too far away and have shipped them in. ‘‘What does a grower do then?’’ Many florists who had purchased stems they couldn’t sell had chosen instead to give them away, rather than see them wasted, she said.
Bay of Plenty grower Darryl Riddington said his crop of lily of the valley would be past the point of picking by the time lockdown ended.
The lilies would now be cut, mulched and composted, Riddington said.
The loss represented about 5 per cent of his yearly sales.
And there were two more upcoming crops that were now at threat of an extended lockdown.
’’The biggest problem is that even if the rest of the country comes out of lockdown, all our stuff goes through Auckland.
‘‘We sell to both local and export markets.’’
It was announced on Monday that all of New Zealand would remain in level 4 for an additional
four days, until 11.59pm August 27, while Auckland would remain in level 4 until 11.59pm on Tuesday, August 31.
‘‘In horticulture there is always risks with weather and sometimes you may lose a crop but it’s gutting to manage a crop for a whole year to find it wasted basically,’’ Riddington said.