During the national level four lockdown the greatest problem for growers was the overnight loss of markets and outlets for produce.
But Pukekohe Vegetable Growers Association president Kylie Faulkner said this time it was the logistics of trying to operate blocks of growing land lying in neighbouring Waikato region.
“There is this invisible line which we are dealing with here in Bombay,” she said.
“We have a block here in Auckland region on Mill Road, but if you go down the road towards Pukekohe, the next block is in Waikato.”
Due to strict police monitored patrols challenging motorists crossing between the two regions, she has workers who are being caught for up to two hours at checkpoints before they can make it to work.
“There seems to have been a fair bit of miscommunication and conflicting messages about what documents are required. I went to one checkpoint with documents, to be told I needed new documents to get an exemption.”
She appreciated the tough job given to authorities to try and avoid illegal movements, but had hoped more priority could be given to essential workers who were not only supplying Auckland, but the entire country with produce.
Produce companies and their staff are classed as essential workers under covid conditions.
“But unfortunately there seem to be a lot of other people who also think they are essential,” she said.
Faulkner was somewhat philosophical about the problems, accepting the Government was unlikely to move the boundary line on account of growers’ needs, while also trying to contain the virus.
“But we do tend to think it may have been more practical to have made the lockdown area from Taupo north,” she said.
Pukekohe grower Brendan Balle said the decision to put the checkpoints where they were has made practical day-to-day operations near impossible for his produce business.
“If we have a tractor puncture on the south side of the boundary, our repair guy can’t come over from the Auckland side to fix it,” he said.
He said the majority of the Pukekohe growing area falls on the Waikato side of the boundary, but packhouses are on the Auckland side, and delays for trucks travelling those routes were becoming untenable.
The 10-minute trip between Pukekohe and Tuakau has stretched to nearly an hour.
He also challenged the decision to put the main checkpoint on Mill Road near the motorway, which strictly speaking was not the true boundary between the regions.
“This is the usual drink-drive checkpoint choke point. A better boundary would have been at Drury, to the north, this is all growing area here and it is a major disruption to supply that goes all over New Zealand,” he explained.
His concern was also over animal welfare issues, with farmers who had stock in the Waikato region struggling to get in each day to feed and water them.
People living on the Waikato side of the Auckland boundary now had to travel 100km south to Huntly for any substantive supermarket shopping, and some rural communities near Port Waikato were struggling to source groceries.
HorticultureNZ chief executive Mike Chapman said prospects for any major shift in defining the boundary looked unlikely, but not through lack of trying.
“We have been incredibly active in trying to resolve this problem. We suggested a new boundary, and (while) it was considered (it) was also rejected.”
Meantime, HortNZ is working with the Government to try and make passage for essential produce workers faster and more seamless.
Chapman said HortNZ had been told by the Ministry of Health, which is in charge of the border controls, the best solution will be to have the covid cluster eliminated by next week, and have the controls lifted.
“They are concerned about covid, and we are concerned about growing. You can see both sides, but the boundary is in the worst position for vegetable growers,” he said.
