Central Otago orchardists say the upcoming harvest is looking promising, but there are more challenges ahead. Chief executive Tim Jones has been pleased to see New Zealanders returning to pick fruit and more backpackers in the country. "I think most cherry growers would be thinking that the light's at the end of the tunnel this season from a worker point of view and that there should be enough people out there to help us out."
Jones welcomed the increase to the RSE cap, but expected it would be a bit too late for the cherry harvest: "That is going to be really important moving forward. Our industry is still growing, lots of young plantings and there will be a requirement for more and more labour, not just the seasonal labour over December and January and the summer period to come and pick, but also more winter work with a lot of these orchards requiring pruning in the winter."
Up to 80 percent of their fruit is for export. For the past two years, they have been able to use mostly passenger-free planes to carry up to 40 tonnes of freight per plane.
"Now there's passengers back, we're down to getting 10-15 tonnes per plane that's leaving New Zealand," Jones said. "There's not three times as many planes as there were so I think freight space is going to be really tight this year and there will be freight forwarders, growers and exporters looking at some interesting ways to try and get their fruit to market. There could have to be the use of sea freight this year."
Sea freight meant roughly three weeks of travel time to get to market instead of 48 hours via planes, making it more of a logistical challenge, he said.
Source: rnz.co.nz