'Unviable to grow produce' in NZ: Farmers blame rising cost of energy, rates, wages, audits

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By Sally Murphy of RNZ

Increasing costs are putting a huge strain on vegetable growers, with some considering hanging up their tools.

Energy costs have almost doubled in the past year, the minimum wage has gone up and the price of on-farm audits is rising - making growing vegetables more expensive.

NZ Gourmet director of production Roelf Schreuder said the business needed to have audits for certification, water quality, chemical storage and health and safety, just to name a few.

"For certification for NZ Gap and Global Gap they come a couple of times a year and charge about $240 an hour to sit down and check the books, so growers are having to spend more time and money preparing for them as well as paying for the actual audit - it's a big cost.

"Then there's other things like building code of compliance that has to be certified every year so that's another audit, then you have HSNO for the storage of chemicals, you get an audit for that as well, so it all adds up."

Schreuder respected everything needed to be kept in order but said regulations should all come under one umbrella to make it easier for growers.

"There's just too many systems in place and some are very time-consuming so you essentially have to hire someone to maintain them.

"Growers are struggling at the moment, the cost of running a business has gone up a lot but the prices they get for the produce has not.

"Consumers see the high prices for fruit and vegetables and think it's expensive but it doesn't always mean the growers are getting a higher return."

Schreuder said he had spoken to a lot of growers and many were thinking of getting out of the game this year because it was not feasible to grow vegetables.

"Increasing rates bills are another problem, some of the key growing regions around Pukekohe and on the outskirts of Christchurch are deemed urban which means the rates are high. I think we will see a lot more growing land being sold to developers.

"It's a very sad situation, New Zealand is a nation of fruit and vegetables, it's got the best soils in the world and we get plenty of rain yet it's becoming unviable to grow produce here. If nothing's done we will end up relying more heavily on imports."

Vegetables NZ chief executive John Murphy, who is also a garlic grower, said increasing costs could not simply be passed on to the consumer.

"That's difficult to do because it's such a competitive market, we really need regulators to look at whether tightening controls is going to limit fresh healthy New Zealand grown vegetables because I don't think anyone really wants to do that.

"In the last week alone I've had three emails from freight companies indicating general freight increases of between 7 and 9 per cent, so it's always constant increases for everything.

"Growers are doing everything they can to be as efficient as possible but if increases keep coming there's only so efficient you can be."

Murphy said the pandemic had shown the importance of growing food here because imported produce was more expensive and harder to source.

- RNZ