PRESS RELEASE – dated 17 August 2023
A first of its kind research programme will explore the incredible work supporting young New Zealanders transitioning from secondary school, to reach their fulfilled career potential.
Food and Fibre Centre of Vocational Excellence has engaged Skills Group to evaluate pathways and transitions between secondary schools and the food and fibre sector. Going beyond the attraction and retention of young people, the research project has a wide scope and will be conducted in multiple stages.
Taking a broad and future-focused lens of the secondary-tertiary-employment interface, the evaluation will include: careers advice and guidance; how well educators and employers are enabled to support programmes; and pathways and transitions that create an effective ecosystem between the world of education and the world of work.
This pivotal project reunites education experts Arthur Graves and Josh Williams, respectively the Ministry of Education’s previous implementation and policy leads for the Youth Guarantee rollout of secondary tertiary initiatives between 2010 and 2014.
Josh Williams, Head of Vocational Consulting, Skills Group suggested the transition could be made with policy settings that support and enable a more seamless ecosystem between education and employment.
“The work on Youth Guarantee and Vocational Pathways over 10 years ago delivered some very impactful insights, so I’m looking forward to working with Arthur again on a deep dive into the school transitions space to see how things are playing out in the food and fibre area, and the wider lessons we can take from that as well,” said Josh.
“I am delighted Josh and I have the opportunity to team up again at the secondary-tertiary-employment interface. It is a privilege to have this opportunity to revisit a space that was such a career highlight. I look forward to seeing the progress to date and the potential for further enhancements to such an important part of the food and fibre talent pipeline,” said Arthur.
The evaluation phase will involve quantitative and qualitative analysis about the state of play, evidence of what is working well or could be improved, stakeholder perceptions, and learner outcomes from a decade of young people engaging in the range of secondary-tertiary-employment interface initiatives. Arthur and Josh welcome the opportunity to hear what the careers and transition advisors’ community is seeing and thinking as part of the evaluation exercise, and for their participation in the project.
The project will take a comparable look across all learners and sectors. Food and Fibre CoVE expects the findings and insights will have wider application and relevance than just the food and fibre sector.
Food and Fibre CoVE was one of two Centres of Vocational Excellence announced by the Minister of Education in 2020. A key feature of the Reform of Vocational Education, Food and Fibre CoVE works closely with our constituent industries and associated employers, Workforce Development Councils, Regional Skills Leadership Groups, Te Pūkenga and other COVEs.
Funded by the Tertiary Education Commission (initially for 5 years) to support the growth of excellence and innovation in vocational education, Food and Fibre CoVE enables change by uncovering opportunities for improving performance across the food and fibre sector (14 industry groups) through research and insights, and the exploration of lifelong workplace learning.
Food and Fibre CoVE is an initiative of the Food and Fibre Centre of Vocational Excellence Society Incorporated.
ENDS
Conferences, Seminars, Technical Meetings and Site Visits – ‘Tis the Season for Learning….
Back in the day as a working orchardist, I always enjoyed the technical seminars, what can we do this year to grow more, bigger, redder fruit. What might we do to have less deductions on the weighbridge at the cannery. Going to the more high-level conferences seemed like a step to far as its difficult to finish the pruning from a hotel room in Christchurch. Now I find myself organizing and running some seminars and enjoying those put on by others. As with many of these gatherings the conversations before and after the presentations are where much of the work is done, setting up meetings and discussions with people that we should be contacting during the normal course of the working week. All good, as this industry is so much about the people. There are a couple of themes that have been bounced around over the last year or two that have stuck with me.
As an industry with about 3000ha total across the country, scale and scaling up is an interesting concept. At this year’s Hort NZ conference Leaderbrand showed us their story from small beginnings to expanding into regions outside Gisborne and the venture into covered crops. The Dairy NZ presentation was eye opening for the extent of their customer management system, in this case on how they can react in times of weather challenges. The SNZ Board was treated to a tour of Mr Apple’s Whakatu site with the scale of Scales robotic operations highlighted, something that stone fruit packers can only dream of. So, if size is a good reaction to the current scenario how might we start down that road? At the orchard level that is beyond my remit, but from the product group level continuing the co-operation that we are seeing post-Gabrielle is a good place to start. From memory there are 20 product groups under the Hort NZ umbrella and a whole bunch, large and small, outside of its framework. We have a regional fruit growers association and vegetable growers association. As product groups we are all attempting to do the same sorts of jobs, often for the same growers and asking for the same information more than once. One thinks that some scale here might breed some efficiencies and let growers get back to pruning trees with owners getting back to imaginative business plans.
One of the other messages that has stuck went something like, run flat out towards the horizon (future of growing) and figure out how we get there along the way. Put another way, build the plane as we are flying it. For a cherry orchard that might look something like 100ha of a 2-D growing system, on dwarf rootstocks, fully netted against birds, rain covered, mechanically pruned in part, sprayed by an over-the-canopy rig that is autonomously driven by non-fossil fuels, picked off the ground by people or may be robots in an orchard that has a diverse ground cover sward. Farfetched, I don’t think so, as all those components can be seen now just not all together in one 2 ha block. A packhouse for a 100ha of cherries might be able to investigate new tech.
This might not be the future that I see in my working life, but it may well be for those talented people that put themselves forward for the young fruit growers competition. It was great to see a representative of the stonefruit part of the industry, and to see her do so well. Congratulations Danni Sammons on your second place. For someone relatively new to fruit growing this is a huge result. Maybe we can swap jobs in a couple of years, and you can help drive a combined food growing industry towards a new horizon while I mow the orchard and ponder life.
At the operational level we are now well under way for the new growing season with bud swell in many orchards, and full bloom in some of the early varieties. The new set of PHI charts are available on the Summerfruit portal and the waiting game is getting to the next stage with regards to tree health following a very wet 18 months. Keep walking around the orchards, take some records of what you see so that we are better informed for next time.
Richard Mills
Summerfruit Technical Advisor
021 632559
The Hawke’s Bay Horticulture Advisory Group (HBHAG), has prepared a summary document with information about various funding and support available to Cyclone Impacted Growers. To download this form please see V2. 232108 HBHAG Info for Growers
Excessive amounts of rain came back to haunt us in June. We had 250% of the month’s long-term average rainfall and river flows were above normal by a similar percentage. The wet June broke a run of three months of below normal rainfall that both the Heretaunga Plains and northern Hawke’s Bay got to enjoy.
Soil moisture had been trying to dry out before June’s rain scuppered the effort. Groundwater levels in June pulled back from the very high levels seen through the first part of the year but they were yet to reflect the month’s rainfall. Air temperatures were warm for the time of year, especially the nights, which were more than 2°C above average for June. No surprises then that soil temperatures were also above average. The extra warmth was fired by warmer than usual seas around Hawke’s Bay.
Looking ahead, the expectation remains that an El Niño will bed in and a positive Indian Ocean Dipole will develop in late winter or spring. Westerlies are likely to feature over the next three months due to the forecasted sea level pressure pattern, being higher than normal pressure extending across Australia and north of New Zealand, and lower pressure to the south. However don’t discount the odd bout of easterly winds as the transition to an El Niño regime continues. Ongoing warmer than normal seas will help to keep temperatures near or above average but they might confuse matters with respect to rainfall. Drier weather is more commonly linked to colder seas. Near or below average rainfall is predicted for the coming three month period but the current warm seas may slow the move to drier weather.
.
.
Percentage of Normal Rainfall
Dr Kathleen Kozyniak
Principal Scientist Air
Hawke’s Bay Regional Council
Kia ora koutou,
You may have heard the EIT campus is starting to open up – we will continue delivering from Hastings this year, with the odd exception, as the majority of our students are this side of the Bay, and travel remains a headache.
All of our programs are well underway. We are having more classes over this time of year, and Level 4 have completed three of the six courses already – this is a big year of study, please check in with them to keep them on track. Level 3 is split into two groups to manage, and they too are about half way through the study days.
We have the English language course for orchard workers starting 17th July, please support this pilot course with any staff whose English needs help, so that we can ensure this runs again in the future. The group will be of mixed skills, with a view to building confidence, and empowering workers to improve their language skills.
Most Year 2 Students have completed the written work for the Growing Environment course and have shown a high standard of work. They are now working on their on-job soil modification workplace assessment which is due 3rd August.
Year 3 students have completed the Pruning and Training Systems class. We visited 4 training systems and researched how they grow and how we manage the structure over their life time. The students also engaged in communication and team tasks to present their findings to the class. We would like to thank the hospitality of Todd at Rock-It, Michael at Mr Apple and Tom & Deanna at T&G. Their enthusiasm for fruit growing inspired the students to show detailed presentations and really grasp the commercial realities for the various systems. This assessment is due 27th July and the workplace assessment is due 3rd August.
Anyone thinking they would like to study the Post Harvest diploma get in touch with Cthorman@eit.ac.nz or nhartley@eit.ac.nz. Courses for the 2023 intake start on the 27th July at Hastings campus.
Noho ora mai,
Clare
Hopefully all of you with mixed waste issues have now heard that an Order in Council to allow the burning of prohibited material like plastic and tanalised/treated timber come into force on 5 July 2023. This means that big, intertwined and really hard to separate mixed waste piles can now be burned. There are some conditions that need to be complied with –
The full text of the Order in Council is available here: Severe-Weather-Emergency-Recovery-Resource-ManagementBurning-of-Waste-Order-2023.pdf (hbrc.govt.nz)
Any questions about burning mixed waste, or other frustrations with planning or council processes, please get in touch– 027 3225595 or Charlotte.Drury@hortnz.co.nz
Dr Charlotte Drury
With apologies to Led Zeppelin, “Been dazed and confused, For so long, it’s not true”
Last month’s topic was winter chill, and how the prediction was for sufficient accumulation by the time our trees wake up in late winter or spring. A good theory and I hope that we are just in a flat patch (low accumulation) at present.
The Longlands and Twyford stations are at 622 and 644 RCU respectively today which is at the lower end of normal. For peach and nectarine we would be looking to get a score of somewhere around 800 Richardson Chill Units for normal development. A bit more than this is ideal for apples and cherries.
Bay View accumulation is at this stage rubbish. Today (19 July) the station has only accumulated 429 units when normal would be somewhere in the 700 units region.
Then add to this the water and silt that Gabrielle dumped, the trees are confused, and so am I. A visit to a couple of Bay View orchards earlier this week maybe indicative of what will happen in orchards across the plains, but I truly hope that it will not be so.
There is significant tree or parts of trees that have died, especially in one, two and tree year old trees. Some of them look to be totally gone apart from a twig or two.
Many of the trees that are alive have poor bud quality, these are skinny, and there is a bit of bud jump happening or may do so soon.
In some the majority of the block is still sleeping apart from a few trees. These few have early leaves, some lonely flowers and some with fruit the size of a thumb nail. The commonality seemed to be the lower spots in the block, so the more stressed trees within a stressed orchard.
Looping back to winter chilling, or the lack of it in Bay View, phenological stages seem to be delayed by about two weeks. There is a very early nectarine called MayGlo which never quite loses its leaves and flowers in the middle of winter, you may have seen it previously when driving to Taupo or Gisborne. There was flower thinning happening a year ago today. This year there are a few flowers visible, but the majority have yet to show themselves.
Will this be typical across the plains? Who knows, but I hope not. What messages do we send up the system to the likes of MPI and employment agencies? I guess this is a time to keep looking and to keep talking to each other. If Gabrielle has taught us anything its that working together is preferable to being siloed.
Richard Mills
Summerfruit Technical Advisor
021 632559
Politicians from across the spectrum have been invited to come and share their policies for managing the ongoing fall-out from Cyclone Gabrielle and for managing Natural Disasters in the future.
With these events occurring on an increasingly regular basis it is an issue not just for Hawkes Bay but for the entire country.
Please follow the below link to further details and ticket information.
https://www.eventfinda.co.nz/2023/cyclone-recovery-and-beyond-who-has-us-covered/napier
The Hawke’s Bay fruit growing industry has seen a steady stream of challenges over the last few years, mostly outside of the control of orchardists. Growers have needed to continuously make personal management decisions that can either manage or mitigate any negative downstream effects to their business operations.
After being in the Hawke’s Bay fruit industry for over 35 years I have come to realise that things will never remain the same. Successful growers are those that change at the right speed for the business, keep the mistakes to a minimum and work very hard to ensure they have the best luck possible.
Many of the decisions that brought success to the top growers in the 1990’s, were superseded with “more important challenges” in the 2000’s and again in the 2010’s. I believe we are again at another pivot point in time for the industry.
It is easier to be successful if you fully understand your business, and where your best efforts need to be now and into the future. Working hard in the wrong area of your business does not help the final outcome.
A successful grower should be able to answer the following:
What limiting factors within my business are having the greatest impact on my current financial sustainability?
1. Do I know what success looks like for these limitations?
2. Do I know how I rate compared to other growers?
3. Once the limitation I need to improve is identified, who will I use to help me find and deliver the solutions?
4. What new challenges are coming in the future?
5. How is my business set up for managing my way through to get the best possible outcomes?
It is also important to plan what your own future business success looks like.
1. Are you driving your business to maximise ongoing profitability? Or planning towards a successful exit strategy?
2. When are you looking to step out?
3. Who is likely to take over?
4. What will growers be looking for when you want to move on?
5. Are you creating an orchard business that will be seen as having on going value or will it be seen as being a remove and replant situation?
6. How do you ensure your short and medium term business success is maximized along the way?
Many growers are keen to get the pruning under way at this time of the year, but it is also critical to clearly understand the business direction you are looking to take. Make sure your on-orchard management decisions are taking you on the right path.
Jonathan Brookes AgFirst HB Ltd
NZ Apples & Pears is facilitating an all-of-horticulture grower meeting, which will include an update from government officials on the North Island Weather Events Loan Guarantee Scheme and the Primary Producer Finance Scheme.
FRIDAY 28 JULY, 2023
• 10.45am – 1pm, followed by light lunch (NOTE this differs from the time originally advertised)
• Magdalinos Room, Havelock North Function Centre, 30 Te Mata Road, Havelock North
For the Full Agenda CLICK HERE
To Register CLICK HERE
