Kiwifruit picking: 'Hot hard work that nobody wants to do'

Thursday, 13 June 2019

Shortages of people willing to pick kiwifruit are holding up one of New Zealand's top exports. Stuff journalist Matt Shand picked 43,000 kiwifruit in six hours to see what the fuss is about. 

It took 180 seconds to be employed as a kiwifruit picker on a Bay of Plenty orchard and about half as long to regret it. 

Strapped with a front pack rapidly reaching its 30kg limit, crouch-walking underneath vines grabbing at prickly, brown fruit, while supervisors kept a hawk-eye, I had swapped my office and collared shirt - my day job as a reporter - to pick as many kiwifruit as possible.

There were 15 pickers in my team and it was the first day on the job for everyone. The demonstration of how to pick a kiwifruit was swift: The secret is to rotate the hand, not pull. 

'Pick faster. Pick more carefully,' a supervisor said while checking his cellphone. 'Move faster. Make sure you check every corner. Pick two at a time. Work faster. Don't hold too many at once. Faster.'

**READ MORE:

*Kiwifruit pickers told to shop around for employers this season

*Hundreds of visitors approved to pick kiwifruit as labour shortage bites

*Industry scrambles to find fruit pickers, offering $23.50 an hour**

This soundtrack plays on repeat.

The humble kiwifruit represents big money. Zespri just announced the 2018/2019 season returned more than $3 billion with 167.2 million trays of kiwifruit picked, packed and sold. That's up 21 per cent on last season. But with reports of a 1200 worker shortage despite competitive pay rates the booming industry is under threat.

Kiwifruit orchards are all over the Bay of Plenty, with 80 per cent of the seasons' take coming from the region. Work was so easily gained literally anyone could do it. One phone call was all it took. 'Come to an induction tomorrow and we'll sign you up,' the call-taker said. The employer, Garcia Contracting, is an established orchard-worker contractor which boasts 'attitude, meritocracy and client satisfaction' on its website. 

May 23 was to be the first day at work. A text at 9pm the previous night confirmed my employment, but I waited until 8am the next day for the location address, with instructions to begin work at 10am. When I arrived at Kellea Orchard in Te Puna, backpackers were huddled together in one group, a motivated team of migrant workers from Vanuatu with their packs on in another. 

Work did not start until 11am. There was a delay with the orchard not having bins set up. The sun was already beating down and being underneath the trees would be a reprieve. 

A Chilean chap complained that last season another contractor ripped him off by not paying any of his tax. He was glad to be with an established company this year. German backpackers spoke nervously about how kiwifruit picking had the reputation of being the worst job in the country. 

'It's hot, hard work that nobody wants to do,' one said. 

Training consisted of a seven minute animated video which spent a lot of its run time talking about pay cheque deductions if you cause any damage to equipment or the orchard while on the job. 

This was followed by a five-minute video about picking fruit which featured migrant workers running to work holding Garcia signs, before grabbing kiwifruit off the vine like a human windmill. 

Contracts were handed out, with instructions to sign it and read it over later.

There was no health and safety induction or discussion of hazards, more boxes were ticked to confirm this had been done. A second form was signed, to confirm a health and safety induction person had run through it with us - but they hadn't.

Then, we were out into the field. Early on, a worker fumbled a kiwifruit. It was like dropping a live grenade. 

'Each one you drop is money you don't get,' the supervisor said. While the money isn't deducted from pay, kiwifruit that lands on the ground doesn't go to your overall picked total - on which your pay is dependant. 

With little to do in the shade, and growing pain in the arms, back, and shoulders, maths was a good distraction. That single dropped kiwifruit was worth 0.003 cents to the fruit picker but so, so much more to the contractor, and the orchard. 

In six hours I filled 6.4 bins of kiwifruit which held 500kg each. By the end of the day I had carted 3300kg of kiwifruit. The average weight of a kiwifruit is 76g, meaning each worker picked about 43,421 kiwifruit.

'I just think about the pay cheque,' an exhausted German tourist said as she unloaded another bundle into a bin.

She paused to search for any stalks still attached, another pet-hate of the supervisor.  The brief 'stalk search' is one of the few moments of  being unburdened from the heavily lifting. They are savoured seconds.

'I heard it's the worst job you can do in New Zealand, but it's easy to get and you are outside at least.'

Her pay cheque for the day would be $132.48 which included 8 per cent holiday pay. That's $22.08 an hour, just shy of the advertised $23.50 an hour but above the living wage of $21.15.

It is hard to not feel short-changed in the job considering the export take. 

Each picker gets 0.003 cents per fruit, or $1 for every 333. So the supervisor is correct: each dropped fruit is money not earned. What he does not say is that 98.7 per cent of the overall earnings goes to someone else.

We are a cog in the production chain. After the fruit is picked it is trucked off to packhouses to be weighed, counted, labelled, packed and stored at temperature until it's trucked out again for export. Zespri manages each packhouse, taking samples to ensure fruit is up to standard to protect the brand. 

That day Countdown had loose green kiwifruit listed at $2.80 per kg with 13 kiwifruit in a kilogram. Workers are paid .04c to pick that kg. That day we picked $138,600 worth of kiwifruit (0.215 cents each) but were paid $1987.2 before tax. That represents 1.3 per cent of the finished price. 

Promotional material for kiwifruit orchard owners put out by post-harvest provider, Apata Group, paint a picture of wealth for growers. 

'With an average return of $53,000 per hectare for green kiwifruit and $95,000 for gold kiwifruit with the average cost per hectare of $30,000, the maths is pretty simple and compelling,' the flyer said. 'It's hard to beat kiwifruit, it's a remarkably lucrative crop.'

Thoughts of lucrative crops and yields were not of concern for the group picking kiwifruit. The joke around the vines was of 'poor life choices' as backs ached.  

During lunch some pulled out their contracts to check what they would be paid - it differs per crop. The contract is another hurdle in attracting workers to the industry. Essentially it is a zero-hour contract rebranded as casual. There is no need to offer or accept work and your employer can stop calling you at any time. 

The labour is tough. Loose vines scratched at the face, and kiwifruit were surprisingly dusty which was a problem for unprotected eyes. Tractors trundled up and down the vines with little warning save for another picker noticing them. Water was not available and most workers thought they were unable to take any toilet or water breaks given the nature of the contract. A gift of baking from the orchard owner during a 10-minute break was very well received. 

Garcia Contracting director Luciano Garcia later agreed workers should have been paid for the late start but it had not been reported to him until Stuff raised it. He fixed the mistake immediately and arranged the group to be paid the missing hour. 

New Zealand Kiwifruit Growers Inc chief executive Nikki Johnson said health and safety is important and all workers must be made aware of the risks on the property and how risks are managed.

'It is a WorkSafe requirement that Person Conducting a Business or Undertaking (PCBU) must ensure, so far as is reasonably practicable, adequate facilities are provided for workers at a workplace, including drinking water.

'Refilling water bottles is a matter of discussion between the contractor and picker but we would expect employers to ensure that employees have access to water while working.'

Garcia apologised and said it was an oversight and that it is an important part of their contract.

'I will follow up with who was responsible,' he said. 'This is not us. We are always trying to improve systems to help safety.'

He said workers were free to take any water and toilet breaks they wanted and staff would be better educated.

The increase of conditions is important if wages are not attracting staff. Garcia and Johnson both agreed increasing pay will go some way to reducing the shortage.

Garcia said it was hard to innovate systems, and provide career options, due to the high turn-over. 

'It is a physical job and you have to enjoy working outside,' he said. 'We hope to improve conditions and strive to be better than average. The challenge is keeping staff.'

Workers later contacted by Stuff said the health and safety inductions had resumed. 

When the shift came to an end the kiwifruit workers finally took off their packs and stretched their aching arms and legs.

'I've been told it gets easier after your third day,' a German backpacker said. 'You get used to carrying the weight and the length of the days.'

Another tourist thought, 'It is bad but not as bad as they said it was going to be. I can see myself doing this for a week or so. It's a good way to extend my visa by doing farm work.' 

One tourist among the vines considered the irony. 

'The funny thing is,' he said. 'I would never pick fruit in my own country. We fly in Romanians to do it but here in New Zealand I am doing it. Maybe it's all just migrant workers and backpackers who are willing to do fruit picking in some one else's country.' 

When the shift ended they asked if I would be back again tomorrow to pick more fruit. The thought of another long day under the vines, the front pack, the sore back, the end of day pay cheque… 'No,' was the reply. They understood.  

Initially the plan had been to donate the money earned to charity - secondary tax would take most of it anyway - but looking at the tired backpackers I decided to shout a round or two and some dinner. They deserved it.

Robots to the rescue

As the demand for more food increases, with 10 billion people to feed by 2050, the demand for fruit picking and agi tech is going to increase dramatically. Tauranga-based technical entrepreneurs Robotics Plus is designing machines to pick for humans.'We ask humans to do inhumane things all the time,' Robotics Plus director Matt Glenn said.  'Technology can assist with that.'

The unmanned vehicle can identify and map every single kiwifruit on an orchard, and they have a working prototype of a picking machine that looks equal parts impressive and terrifying.

Four robotic arms, a bit like Doctor Octopus, are mounted on a camera block which takes moves on hydraulics to trap then pick the fruit as it rolls down into a reservoir. It is a technical marvel but one that will never fully replace the need for human workers as kiwifruit grow in all sorts of troublesome locations.

'It will be a case of human workers moving through to finish up what the machine may miss,' he said. 'If we can get 70 to 80 per cent of a vine picked then that makes the human job much easier.'

The machine is in its prototype stage and they hope to have it up and running in the next two years.