HOW WILL WE ATTRACT WORKERS WHO UNDERSTAND VEGETABLE GROWING? Antony Heywood : Vegetables New Zealand Inc. general manager
Social Licence Right to farm
Food Safety
Food & Security
Eat with confidence
Fresh & healthy
Decarbonisation
Education and Labour
To reduce greenhouse gases
Skills for life
Nitrogen
Management with best practice
VNZI manifesto – spotlight on education and labour
Labour is going to be critically short in 2022. It is estimated that 45,000 workers will be required to cover horticulture‘s labour needs during peak harvest in March and April 2022, but only about 21,000 workers will be available, or less than half of what is needed. What will this mean for vegetable growers? Fruit product groups are actively recruiting via coordinated programmes. Vegetable growers need to think about similar programmes because without them, workers will pass us by on their way to fruit, arable or dairy employment options. The ball is in our court. Emma Boase, who was up until recently HortNZ people capability manager, says:
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“Employers need a day-to-day focus on building positive workplaces for each and all employees. We can continue competing between ourselves and with other sectors for quantity and quality of people but real, sustained results will only come from collaboratively building our workforce in partnership with the education system. If we do this, and invest a little bit often in our own people, we will find that workers will choose horticulture, they will stay, and they will encourage their community to choose it too. “Our production capability will always be determined by our people capability.”
Employers need a day-to-day focus on building positive workplaces for each and all employees
