Vegetables NZ and HortNZ make it clear what the vegetable industry needs to thrive

Vegetables NZ and Horticulture New Zealand presented in person in front of the Environment Select Committee hearing submissions on the Planning Bill and the Natural Environment Bill. It was the committee's first day of many to come!

Both groups made it clear that the vegetable industry cannot grow fresh, healthy food for the benefit of New Zealanders' health, if the regulatory environment does not enable the use of land - including the rotation of vegetable crops - while enabling growers also to meet crops' water and nutrient needs, and deal effectively with pest and disease pressures.

If one of these inputs is not able to be met, growers cannot achieve a marketable crop, New Zealanders' food security is at risk, and valuable resources - land, water and nutrients to feed the crop - are wasted.

This argument also goes to the heart of the highly productive land debate: land is not 'highly productive' if any of the other inputs to growing a marketable crop is unavailable or limited in some way.

Pictured left to right outside the Beehive on a cold Wellington day, are:
Emily Levenson (HortNZ environmental policy adviser), John Murphy (Vegetables NZ chair and Blenheim, garlic and shallot grower), Jay Clarke (Vegetables NZ board member and Levin, fresh cut greens grower), and Kate Scott (HortNZ chief executive).