Business Rural Autumn 2021

68 | Thriving business Virginia Wright RURAL SERVICES » Ariki Seeds Onion seed in tunnel production at Springston. A rjen and Jantina Buter, together with their 23-year-old son David and two senior technicians, Jon and Caroline, form the dedicated team of permanent workers at the centre of a seed multiplication company based in West Melton called Ariki Seeds. They work with around 30 farmers, the majority of whom are in Canterbury and the others in Mar- lborough and the Wairarapa. At Ariki Seeds they dry and process the seed crops from those farm- ers as well as the seed crops they grow on their two home farms. Their customers are specialized vegetable breeding companies, the bulk of which are based in Europe and North America. “These companies ask specialized seed multi- pliers like us to bulk the seed up,” explains Arjen. “We specialise in hybrid radish, spinach, bras- sicas, sweetcorn and onion. So if we use the cab- bage we do on our home farm as an example, the customer might give us 20 grams of seed which we grow as a vegetable crop. Then we allow it to go to seed instead of harvesting it, so after about a year the initial 20 grams yields about 20 kilos of seed. 100 per cent of our business is letting crops go to seed and selling those seeds back to customers.” It sounds simple but as well as the dedicated core team it requires an additional five to ten casual staff in season, and considerable invest- ment in highly specialized seed-drying and seed- cleaning equipment, to satisfy the high-tech, large scale market gardeners who expect no less than 99 plants from any 100 seeds they might buy. It’s this high-quality demanding customer at the end of the supply chain that Arjen keeps in mind as he and his team work to eliminate any seed that isn’t good enough from their stock. It’s a high-tech process using high spec machinery sourced from Holland and Germany, as Arjen explains. “90% of our seed is between 1.6 and 3mm in size, or as small as a third of a grain of rice. We use a photo-sorting machine which takes 45,000 photos in one minute as the seeds go through. “They pass under four computers programmed to pick up variations in colour, shape and size, which are the indicators for good seeds. As the seeds go through it only takes a fraction of a second for a photo to be taken, the computer to process the information, and then any seeds showing imperfections to be eliminated.” Around 5% of their business comes from Kiwi companies the rest are overseas. “So if we use the cabbage we do on our home farm as an example, the customer might give us 20 grams of seed which we grow as a vegetable crop. Then we allow it to go to seed instead of harvesting it, so after about a year the initial 20 grams yields about 20 kilos of seed. C S M Seed Multiplication andMarketing CSM 03 324 3206 or 027 687 7116 Harts Rd, Lakeside RD3 Leeston , i Supporting Ariki Seed in its produc- tion is Carter Seed Management, with Dennis Carter and Arjen Buter going back years before either of them started their own business, and since growing alongside each other thanks to the trusting relationships Dennis has formed with the growers, and Arjen has formed with the customers. Dennis says New Zealand is ideally placed to service the Northern Hemi- sphere’s vegetable seed requirements, and currently produces about 50% of the world’s radish and carrot seed. “Our seasonality is totally the opposite to the Northern Hemi- sphere, so that allows in some instances for two crops to be grown in one year,” Dennis says. “Our island temperate climate and our latitude has a lot to do with New Zealand being suitable for vegetable seed production, and New Zealand farmers are skilled and our farming and industry infrastructure has been developed with all the specialist plant and equipment required to produce top quality vegetable seed . Carter Seed Management and Ariki Seeds have together built up the infrastructure necessary to support this type of vegetable seed produc- tion, including the purchase of nets and Lasers to keep birds out of the crops. “There has been a huge outlay in the equipment required to produce, Seed Production Specialists harvest, and process our seed crops. We’ve also built up our drying capability, as every variety and line has to be kept separate.” Carter Seed Management assists Ariki Seed prior to planting, during the growing, and including the harvesting, drying, and cleaning of the crops. “Before planting, we complete an application formwith the growers with all sorts of informa- tion on their paddock history, includ- ing chemical use, the rotation of their cropping sequence, risk of disease, risk of birds, and also very important- ly, the isolation aspect from other crops of the same species. We are registered with SCID, Seed Crop Isolation Distance, and we map and identify where our ields are going to be, so we don’t have isolation con licts with our crops or with other farmers’ crops.” After planting, crops are inspected and reported on every fortnight. Dennis believes the future challenges for the industry are going to be based around the availability of water and growers having acceptable ields on suitable soils with safe isolation. “What is needed are pro icient growers on good soils with suitable equipment who are willing to adapt to a horticultural, rather than a broada- cre approach to growing a specialist seed crop.”