It’s a doubly cruel blow considering the past months were spent trying to muster up enough pickers to bring in the crops.
Those people hoping to make a few bob will be twiddling their thumbs as the apples, kiwifruit and cherries aren’t fit for sale.
Food production is always at the mercy of the elements but the reports about the hail in Tasman, in particular, seem astonishingly out of the ordinary.
Here’s hoping growers can ride out this latest storm and emerge to face the elements again.
Bryan Gibson
SI growers hit hard
Fruit and hop growers in parts of the South Island are counting the cost of wild weather since Christmas, with the bill expected to run into millions of dollars.
Brexit clears way for NZ negotiations
Exporters fed up with the dismal agricultural market access offers made by the European Union in two-and-a-half years of trade talks with New Zealand say there should be no more excuses now that it has sorted out its future trading relationship with the United Kingdom.
Deal softens lamb export blow
Meat exporters believe they sidestepped a “nightmare scenario” in the British lamb market, which very likely would have had negative consequences for New Zealand’s other international markets after the United Kingdom and the European Union struck a last-minute trade deal.
ACROSS THE RAILS: Strong sales across the board
The on-farm selling scene may have quietened down over the Christmas break and into the start of the new year, but that doesn’t mean that the sales held the first week back were any less significant.
