Pasifika workers key to orchard success
A Central Otago orchardist tells Rob Tipa seasonal workers from the Pacific have brought his business financial security.
Without the guarantee of a reliable seasonal labour force from Vanuatu, a Central Otago orchardist says his business would have shrunk instead of grown.
Southern Orchards at East Roxburgh has been a party to the government’s Recognised Seasonal Employment (RSE) scheme since its inception as a pilot programme nearly 10 years ago.
The orchard - at 124 hectares the largest of seven orchards in the C A J van der Voort Group in the Teviot Valley near Roxburgh - employs 46 Ni-Vanuatu workers for seven months of the year from October through until May, mainly to handle peak demand for thinning and harvesting its apple crop.
‘‘In the absence of the RSE scheme, our orcharding operation would have actually got smaller, that’s the reality of it,’’ says Chris Hull, operations manager for the C A J Group.
‘‘It doesn’t matter what anyone says, we would not have been able to harvest or thin our apple crop because the labour force wasn’t available.’’
He says Central Otago is unique in the numbers of seasonal workers required by the primary sector, particularly to prune, thin and harvest pipfruit, stonefruit and grape crops in the region.
Kiwis who want to work on orchards are out there, he says, but it is difficult to find enough of them at times when they are needed most.
‘‘I know the mantra of the RSE scheme is always to employ Kiwis first and that is something we have to do and we do, but we cannot grow our business and offer full-time permanent positions to Kiwis without having our RSE scheme in place.
‘‘Because we’re not in close proximity to a major city or town, there is no certainty about the supply of labour for seasonal employment and this scheme provides that certainty,’’ Hull says.
‘‘Prior to the RSE scheme it was a constant battle to find enough staff.
‘‘We would have been in the situation where we couldn’t harvest a crop.’’
The Government has announced an increase in the RSE scheme of 1000 seasonal workers to 10,500 for the 2016-17 season, a welcome relief for the growing horticulture industry.
The horticulture and viticulture industry is New Zealand’s fourthlargest export industry and aims to increase exports to $10 billion by 2020.
Seasonal workers from the Pacific are an important part of a sector that employs about 60,000 people throughout New Zealand.
Chris Hull welcomes the increase in RSE workers and says the CA J Orchard Group would like to employ more seasonal and permanent workers to cope with the group’s expansion and development plans over the next five years.
’’It gives us some certainty about our business and seasonal labour force moving forward, which is something we didn’t have in the past,’’ he says.
‘‘By having that certainty we can grow the business and create new opportunities for us to employ more permanent people on our developing operation.’’
Hull says one of the features of the RSE scheme that is often ignored is its importance to the many Pacific Island villages that supply workers throughout New Zealand.
‘‘It’s a hard one to measure but its impact is enormous in terms of welfare and education,’’ he says.
RSE workers come from the eligible Pacific Island countries of Vanuatu, Tonga, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Kiribati, Tuvalu, Papua New Guinea, Nauru and Fiji.
Zebedee Poilapa is a team leader at Southern Orchards of a group from Mele village on the Vanuatu main island of Efate.
He says about 60 people from his village are working in Central Otago, mostly in Roxburgh and two or three in Cromwell.
Poilapa says his village has everything it needs for a comfortable subsistence lifestyle in Vanuatu, but seven months work in New Zealand orchards every year provides families with the finance to buy materials to build permanent housing and to pay for their children’s school fees.
In his village most RSE workers have built new houses for their families from their savings to replace traditional leaf huts with thatched roofs.
Last year Poilapa and his son built ‘‘a big house’’ of 100 square metres with concrete foundations and a corrugated iron roof, a house that is now used by villagers as a safe shelter during a cyclone.
In the 10 years he has been working in Central Otago, he says he has learnt every aspect of orcharding and has recently completed a First Aid Certificate training course.
‘‘These guys are worth their weight in gold because there’s jobs out there that they have been doing for 10 years, ‘‘ Hull says.
‘‘They’re here from when the fruit is just forming on the tree through to harvest so they know exactly what to do and how to do it.
‘‘They’re experienced, they know what they are doing and we have a return rate of about 90 per cent year on year,’’ he said.
Horticulture New Zealand chief executive Mark Chapman says the RSE scheme will celebrate 10 years next year.
Chapman says HortNZ has a number of programmes to get New Zealanders into permanent work and the RSE scheme is separate to that.
‘‘In fact, by handling the harvest, RSE has allowed the horticulture industry to grow and employ more New Zealand workers in permanent roles.’’