Photo: RNZ / Susan Murray
Our guest this week is a kiwifruit grower from Bay of Plenty David Jensen. He's been growing kiwifruit for 12 years and has 25 hectares of the fruit spread over three orchards. Eight hectares is gold which is now picked, he's about to start on green.
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He says they've managed to get enough people to harvest fruit on his orchard, but acknowledges a shortage of staff generally is making things tricky.
Gold growers in particular are making very good money this year, but he says that doesn't mean they will next year, or they don't get hit with hail, so simply increasing pay rates to entice more workers to pick fruit, isn't the only solution.