Vegetable growers fight for survival

As Jay Clarke mulls the future of the commercial vegetable-growing business based on the fertile plains of the Horowhenua that his family has built into the region’s largest over the last 46 years, his voice begins to tremor.
“I don’t think I’d want my kids to do this,” says the 42-year old father of two. “I get emotional saying this because my mum and dad poured their heart and souls into this and my sister and I continue to do that – we absolutely live and breathe it. 
“But it’s come to the point where I don’t want my children to have to face this. I don’t want them to have to live with the stress and uncertainty that we’ve had to live with.”
Clarke’s family owns Woodhaven Gardens, which employs up to 250 staff and sells all its produce in New Zealand, supplying about 10 percent of the country’s fresh cut vegetables.
Like many other commercial vegetable growers around the country, Woodhaven Gardens faces an uncertain future as regulators struggle to balance the need for food production with protecting the environment. 
Vegetables NZ chair John Murphy says at least 60 percent of outdoor vegetable growing is under threat in Pukekohe and Levin because of unworkable regional regulations. Restrictions in other growing areas around the country mean the industry will struggle to expand to meet the needs of a growing population.
That’s important because New Zealand is dependent on the domestic supply of fresh vegetables, because of our geographic isolation and the perishable nature of the produce, and there are limited areas suitable for vegetable growing.
The industry would like the Government to create a new National Environmental Standard for commercial vegetable production, which would ensure vegetable growing was a nationally permitted activity under the Resource Management Act, subject to good management practices and independent environmental audits.
The previous Labour-led government attempted to safeguard domestic vegetable production by allowing regional councils in Pukekohe and Horowhenua to exempt vegetable growers from meeting freshwater targets under the National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management for up to 10 years from September 2020.
At the time, Environment Minister David Parker and Agriculture Minister Damien O’Connor presented Cabinet with the conundrum confronting the Government – how to manage nitrogen for ecosystem health while ensuring national food security and the domestic production of affordable fresh vegetables for human health.
The Ministry for the Environment has warned that some trade-off was needed between freshwater quality and ensuring domestic vegetables remained available and affordable.
The industry feels that using the whenua and awa to grow healthy vegetables to feed New Zealanders should be prioritised, ahead of export industries such as dairy.
Studies have shown that limiting vegetable production would push up prices.
An AgChain study for the Ministry for the Environment last year found that if commercial vegetable production was constrained by 5-10 percent, it would push prices up 10-20 percent, and if the production impact was more than 20 percent, significant price increases of 20-100 percent or more could be expected.
That’s in an environment where 17 percent of Kiwi children are already facing food insecurity and fewer than 20 percent of the population eat the recommended number of vegetables a day needed for good health and nutrition.
The tensions between food security and environmental impact are acute in Horowhenua, which produces about 20 percent of New Zealand’s green vegetables and is also home to one of the country’s most polluted lakes.
Lake Horowhenua, also known as Roto Horowhenua, Waipunahau, Punahau and Te Takere Tangata o Punahau, is one of the most seriously degraded lakes in the country. Most of the harm is because of sewage discharge from Levin between 1952 and 1987, but it is also affected by agricultural run-off from dairy farming and vegetable growing.
The Muaūpoko Tribal Authority and Te Rūnanga o Raukawa, who have competing claims to water bodies in the Horowhenua area and are against ongoing pollution, successfully challenged the vegetable exemption in the Court of Appeal late last year, because there was insufficient consultation with iwi.
The coalition Government is poised to have another look at the issue.
As part of its election campaign, the National Party undertook to make growing vegetables for human consumption a permitted activity under the Resource Management Act within one year of taking office.
Murphy, from Vegetables NZ, wrote to Government ministers this month expressing the industry’s disappointment about progress, and warning time was running out for the Government to make good on its promise in its current term. 
Chris Bishop, the Minister Responsible for RMA Reform, says the Government is considering changes to the regulatory requirements for vegetable growing as part of its review of the National Policy Statement for Freshwater Management, and its broader National Direction changes, which he expects to be in place mid next year. 
He says more information is likely to be released early next year.
In the meantime, vegetable growers such as Woodhaven Gardens remain in limbo as regional councils try to balance competing interests in their regional plans, and spend years litigating conditions through the courts.
Horticulture NZ has warned that if a current Environment Court appeal to Horizons Regional Council’s latest plan change is successful, the viability of 20 percent of New Zealand’s green vegetables for domestic supply in Horowhenua would be “uncertain”.
A decision is expected before the end of the year.
Clarke says an unfavourable ruling could make it extremely difficult to operate for some growers and result in the loss of some highly productive land to housing.
“At its heart, this is a story about trying to ensure New Zealanders’ right to access locally grown, fresh, healthy vegetables at a reasonable price,” Clarke said. “This is something the country’s growers passionately want to protect and the current and proposed regulations around the country put this at risk.”
He says uncertainty about the future is taking its toll, and many growers have already exited the industry. 
“We’re exhausted by it,” Clarke says. “It’s gone on far too long.
“People in the industry are on the precipice of pulling out just because of this – the level of business uncertainty that it is creating is just way, way too high.
 “If people were serious about actually wanting to ensure that New Zealanders had access to reasonably priced healthy vegetables, this problem would have been solved a long, long, long, long time ago.”