Apple Industry Growing Local Jobs

Apple Industry Growing Local Jobs

Hawke’s Bay’s buoyant apple industry is opening up opportunities for young people keen to make horticulture a career.

Employed at T&G’s Whakatu packhouse for the 2014 season, Deanna Muir and Maatu Akonga were among a dozen workers identified as having the potential to go further with the international company, which purchased Apollo Apples last year.

T&G asked the 12 seasonal workers if they would be interested in enrolling for EIT’s Certificate in Sustainable Horticulture, offering a package that provided two days’ guaranteed work while they studied.

The Level 3 programme encompasses fruit production projects which can be associated with off-campus locations such as local orchards.

Having completed their certificates, the pair are now full-time staff members and are now looking forward to signing up for horticultural apprenticeships next year.

That will involve two further years of part-time study to gain EIT’s Level 4 National Certificate in Horticulture (Advanced), a programme designed around the industry’s busiest times of year.

Deanna admits that after leaving Hastings Girls’ High School, packhouse work was going to be “a gap filler” for a couple of months. However, the certificate study proved “a big eye-opener,” she says. “I didn’t realise how much was involved in horticulture.”

The 19-year-old has enjoyed acquiring new skills, including learning how to set out an orchard to optimise the fruit trees’ exposure to the sun and how to drive tractors and hydraladders.

With her sights fixed on an orcharding career, Deanna is taking up the company’s suggestion to compete in the upcoming T&G Fruitgrower of the Year competition.

From Waimarama, Maatu was on a Work & Income benefit before starting at the packhouse, a job he thought would give him a couple of months’ work.

“The course was offered to me at the end of the season. I took it up and am still here over a year and a half later,” he says.

A company check showed Maatu had a health issue and T&G orchard labour manager Maurice Windle says addressing that lifted the 21-year-old’s reliability and made him a good prospect for the programme.

Like Deanna, Maatu also enjoys the variety of orchard work, finding every day involves different tasks.

Employing over 500 people on a seasonal basis in a season in Hawke’s Bay, Maurice says the company recruits a large number of casual staff before finding two “gems” like Maatu and Deanna.

“They have done amazingly well and now have a career path. In the past, that didn’t happen. People were working in the industry because there was nothing else to do. Now there’s a huge future for them.”

Snowballing sales of Hawke’s Bay fruit prompted the company to launch the scheme last year and it intends to continue with it.

“Hawke’s Bay’s apple industry is growing at a rapid rate because of investment by the company’s shareholders. They have set annual targets for carton production and are exporting to over 40 countries around the world. Demand is strong in India, China and the Middle East.”

After a lengthy period of dismal returns, Maurice says growers have seen a return to profitability in the last three years.

“We are positive about getting young people up and running in this industry. It’s where the future is and hopefully they will be managers and leaders later on.”

ENDS

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