Energy from the sun fires up vege packhouse

Growing veggies is in Robin Oakley's blood.

The fifth-generation Canterbury grower was running a market garden before he'd even finished school.

In 1999, Oakley launched Oakley's Premium Fresh Vegetables and now the business covers 400 hectares.

Oakley's passion for growing has been getting recognition along the way too.

The latest accolade was a silver medal at the 2021 Outstanding NZ Food Producer Awards for the Oakley's Baby Golden Gourmet Potatoes.

He's seen a trend away from white and red potatoes towards the golden varieties.

Another trend that has hit the headlines is the rising price of vegetables for consumers.

Robin Oakley says; "the first part of that is that vegetables are not necessarily expensive, if you go behind the scenes and see what is involved in their production.

Put aside the extra costs of compliance, we are facing at the moment. We have had a large number of severe weather events around the country and that has made holes in our production.

Inputs like the cost of fertiliser have risen in costs by 20 to 30 percent. Other prices just keep creeping up; fuel prices are rising.”

"And the cost of labour has been going up for the last two or three years - we've been absorbing that."

Oakley aims to provide full-time work to reduce the number of people who may have to move on after seasonal work runs out.

At the same time, he has turned to technology to speed up production, especially after Covid drove a truck through the normal labour hiring norms.

"It used to be that it was a good job employing people to give them work. but that reliance on people is difficult. It is hard work, it can be repetitive."

So he has added in a mechanised grading and washing line for potatoes.

Another advance is his field of solar panels generating enough to power around 40 percent of needs.

"It is not far off the shortest day and it is telling me we have produced 722 KW hours so far today," he says, pointing to an app on his phone.

"We are expecting to get about 30 years out of it; after seven years it should have paid it itself and be plain sailing."

But the key is not just financial but also environmental. His business is based on the sustainability of people, soil and land.

"At first I thought is it worth using solar power when we produce good hydropower here in the South. Then it was pointed out to me that some hydropower is sent North where some power is generated by coal. If we can send our power north and stop coal production, that is a big motivator."