Ma¯nuka mission for third generation of Fijians
Honey hillsides
On a beautiful day in Mangamahu, in the central North Island, 45 Fijians are scaling steep hill country farmland, planting ma¯ nuka seedlings.
The sun is hot but the earth underfoot is still holding the moisture necessary for the seedlings to survive.
This is the end of the planting season, which this year started early, in May, and stretched out to accommodate the size of the task at hand.
The ma¯ nuka seedlings planted at the 900-hectare property in the Whangaehu River valley, inland from Whanganui, belong to a cultivar developed for its high-quality UMF production.
After decades of cutting scrub for farmers, the irony of being contracted to plant ma¯ nuka is not lost on Patrick Carroll, owner of Blinkhorne & Carroll.
‘‘It’s kind of like a fireman going to school with a box of matches saying, ‘here kids, take these home, see what you can do’.’’
Blinkhorne & Carroll is the country’s biggest scrub-cutting company and Carroll wonders if the very plants they are putting in might one day need taking out by his team.
‘‘Farmers give us a hard time,’’ Carroll says, ‘‘ ‘You’re just making work for yourself in the future’. And we might well be.’’
Along with planting and scrub cutting, the company also carries out pruning, thinning and forest management.
Carroll has about 50 staff, most of whom are Fijian. Thirtyeight of those Fijian workers came out this year and another seven highly-skilled Fijians live in Whanganui on work visas that need renewing yearly.
‘‘They are my key people,’’ Carroll says. The planting work is not hard but to train someone on chainsaw use costs thousands and is a one-on-one process. Rounding out the numbers are six New Zealanders.
This season, Carroll applied for 40 essential skills visas for Fijian workers. The process took six months and two people missed out, based on medical checks.
The quality of work he gets from his team makes the process worthwhile.
He says that on average, out of every 10 New Zealand workers he employs, one will be worth keeping on. Out of 30, he might get one very promising employee. But the Fijians are consistently good.
The company has been employing Fijians since 1976 and some of the current workers are third-generation employees.
Vilimone Betakula has been working for Carroll since 2003. He says he enjoys training new workers and the job conditions are good.
This year, his 18-year-old son, Kurly Lighithmana, has joined him on a six-month contract.
Lighithmana says he’s working hard to save before he returns to Fiji.
‘‘It’s a very, very hard job,’’ he says, ‘‘but I just love it.’’
Carroll says his workers have to join the union as a condition of employment and other migrant workers would be better protected from exploitation if they were also required to join unions.
He pays planters $22 for every box of 100 trees they plant; workers plant between 10 and 13 boxes a day. He provides housing, meals and utilities for his employees.
The average wage his workers earn in Fiji is about $3 an hour, Carroll says, and the concept of holiday pay and sick leave is new to them.
‘‘So you come here and you’re
‘‘It’s a very, very hard job, but I just love it.’’
Kurly Lighithmana, above
sticking a thousand dollars a week clear in your back pocket, and that’s a fortune.’’
The Fijian workers are putting 30 per cent of their wages towards building projects in their villages, in a programme organised by Carroll.
The company carried out a similar scheme in the 1980s, building halls, churches and schools which they are now going to update.
So far they have saved $60,000. ‘‘If we get to, say, $75,000 in the bank, that’s going to be a lot of building,’’ Carroll says.
The company has no shortage of work and the One Billion Trees plan has resulted in more requests, but Carroll is selective about the jobs he accepts.
‘‘We haven’t done any work for anyone that is just carbon credits. I don’t believe in it enough to just take out a whole lot of productive farm land.’’
The ma¯ nuka planting makes sense, Carroll says.
‘‘This here I understand, even as a scrub cutter. I can see the value in it as a medicinal product, I believe in it so therefore I’ll do it.’’
Like pine, the ma¯ nuka is planted 3m apart, amounting to 1275 trees per hectare.
The company has planted about 2000ha this season, just over 2 million trees, and already has 800ha on the plans for next season, of which 650ha will be in ma¯ nuka.
‘‘We potentially have 40 per cent more work next year,’’ Carroll says.
But they can’t satisfy the demand for planting without more Fijian workers.
With One Billion Trees being planted, Carroll says finding workers is only going to get more difficult.
‘‘Forest thinning is going to be the next big labour shortage in New Zealand.
‘‘Someone’s got to get in there eventually and cut two-thirds of them out, and you can’t get those people easily.’’