Sixteen-year-old Canterbury high school student Lincoln Roper recently competed in the Young Vegetable Grower of the Year contest, coming runner-up out of four.
Although Lincoln was competing against much older contestants his years of experience on his family's horticultural property meant he was more than competitive in the range of challenges from finance and marketing tasks to quad bike safety, seeder cleaning and fertiliser.
Lincoln was the youngest competitor in the 10-year history of the competition and was only confirmed as a contestant about 10 days before last week's competition in Christchurch. Lincoln didn't have much time to prepare, but luckily he has a lifetime of experience with his family's business, Roper and Son, near Lincoln township after which he was named.
The 60 hectare property grows red onions, pumpkins, squash, processed peas for Heinz Wattie's, wheat and barley.
His parents, Lance and Makereta were struggling to make an income from vegetable growing about 20 years ago when MG Marketing suggested that they specialise in peeled red onions, then a relatively novel vegetable. They are now the biggest red onion grower in the South Island, supplying Foodstuffs' supermarkets New World and Pak'n Save. Onions are sold in packs of three under their own "Roper's ready to go" label as well as loose.
As the popularity of red onions has expanded, so has their growing, peeling and packing operation, with Makereta giving up a job in Christchurch to run the office and packhouse. They now supply 800 tonnes of peeled red onions year-round.
Initially peeling onions by hand, in 2007 the Ropers bought a defunct chicken farm, close to their original property and built a purpose-designed peeling plant and new packhouse. An imported skinning machine had to be substantially modified to suit New Zealand-grown onions.
They are now starting to outgrow this and were looking to import a more modern peeler, able to process more tonnage per hour, said Lance.
Even with the peeler machine, a lot of hand work is required to achieve the finished product for supermarket shelves. While a chamber of compressed air removes the dried outer layers, the onions still need to be trimmed top and tail, with packhouse staff using air guns to remove the final layer.
"I enjoy planting and watching plants come up and knowing that you have done the job right." Lincoln mainly helps out in the school holidays and sometimes after school during the peak harvest period. "I try to stay out of the packhouse. I prefer the outdoors."
He studies agriculture and horticulture at high school and future plans include a diploma of agriculture at nearby Lincoln University.
Source: stuff.co.nz
