Fruit growers stretched for labour are desperately seeking a Pacific bubble for workers as demand for MIQ allocations outstrip supply. More than 3 million cartons of fruit will to go waste, they warn.
Apple and pear orchards have large blocks of fruit still sitting on trees in the Hawkes Bay, weeks before pruning season starts.
“It looks a bit depressing, really,” NZ Apples and Pears chief executive Allan Pollard says.
The labour shortage will have a “huge” financial cost with the industry expecting more than 3 million cartons of unpicked fruit going to waste.
“That's upwards of $130 million,” Pollard says.
Some of those losses have been due to poor weather, but the bulk has been due to being unable to harvest on time.
The first of 2000 Recognised Seasonal Employer scheme workers entered managed isolation in January, bumping up the available workforce to 7000. Typically the industry has 14,400 workers under the scheme every year.
And in early May, the government announced further border exceptions for 2400 workers to enter between June 2021 and March 2022.
However, only 150 workers will be able to enter New Zealand every 16 days.
Pollard says growers have been working hard to get their workers through MIQ allocations.
“It’s a huge load of work for employers to give Immigration NZ all the names of workers they want to bring back. I had three full time staff administering this for the cohort of workers in January.”
“2400 MIQ allocations over 10 months is not enough by a long shot" – Allan Pollard, NZ Apples and Pears
In addition to this, employers foot the bill for their workers’ MIQ stay about $5500 and must also pay them the living wage, $22.10 an hour for a minimum of 30 hours per week, while in isolation.
Pollard fears by March 2022, more RSE workers will be leaving than coming into the country under the current allocations.
“2400 MIQ allocations over 10 months is not enough by a long shot,” he says.
"When we've asked growers if they would like to participate in getting workers MIQ slots, we've been oversubscribed because there's just 150 allowed every 16 days."
Richard Pentreath, president of Hawke's Bay Fruitgrowers' Association, says the industry couldn’t survive another year like this.
“Jacinda made it very clear the horticulture industry will pull us out from Covid but we've not seen that support to back us,” Pentreath says.
Pentreath says labour shortages will cause small players to exit the industry and stifle growth and innovation.
"It's a shame because before all of this, New Zealand's was seen as the example for how to do things in horticulture."
Pre-Covid, the apple industry was expected to reach $1 billion in exports. The World Bank also funded a multi million dollar project that involved New Zealand apple growers sharing their expertise with Indian farmers.
He says he was “grateful” for the Ministry of Social Development’s scheme to incentivise workers to relocate for fruit picking, but it hadn’t been of much use.
Pollard says the same.
The scheme offered up to $200 a week for accommodation costs and a $1000 incentive payment for workers who completed jobs of six weeks or longer.
Pollard says unemployed workers were less willing to relocate.
Pentreath says ultimately the numbers weren’t enough and many of the workers brought in through MSD’s programme were not a replacement for skilled and experienced RSE workers, which meant the productivity was far less.
Pollard says there has to be a better way of bringing more people in.
“In the immediate future there is no reason we can't be getting workers from countries where there is no Covid and wrap a vaccination plan around them.”
He says fruit pickers are being enticed by Australia for good money and opportunities.
“New Zealand’s economy is highly constrained because there's not a lot of people anyway. This idea that there is a vacant workforce waiting to work is nonsense.”
As at June 4, Australia has let more than 7000 workers under its seasonal work scheme through its borders from Pacific Island nations since August last year.
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