30 | Birdhurst Orchards REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT Hugh de Lacy Robotics bring a high-tech focus Birdhurst Orchards is owned by the Wilkins brothers Heath and Rhys. The big Motueka kiwifruit and apple grower Birdhurst Orchards is showing the way in offering a bottom-to-top career path to new recruits, where once there seemed to be nothing much beyond the old horticulture labour bug-bears of pruning, picking and thinning. Birdhurst Orchards, owned by the Wilkins brothers Heath and Rhys who also have a major shareholding in packer-marketer Golden Bay Fruit, started out as a 10ha tobacco farm run by the brothers’ father Kerry and his brother Farran. When the Government shut down the tobacco industry in the late 1980s, the Wilkins switched first to kiwifruit and then to apples. Today the second Wilkins generation farms 300ha of intensive dwarf apple orchards and 53ha of Zespri Gold kiwifruit, the biggest privately owned orchard in the Nelson/Tasman region. The pipfruit operation is managed by Richard, Aaron and Shane and the kiwifruit operation is managed separately by Soni, because of its size Richard sees a profound change coming in the kind of employee that the business is trying to attract. “Technology is steadily taking over in the labour-intensive field work just as it has already changed packaging through the use of robotics,” Richard says. He points to Birdhurst packer Golden Bay Fruits, which established a new state-of-theart packing house near Motueka Airport four years ago, as the way things are going not just in pipfruit and kiwifruit but in the wider horticultural field. “Robotics are coming more and more into the horticultural industries and are changing the profiles of the workers they need. “Where once we pulled in seasonal labour when labour was the dominant factor in fruit-growing and packing, now robotics are bringing a high-tech focus that incidentally reduces the need for labour. “These days we’re able to offer career opportunities to university graduates no less than kids fresh out of school.” Not that the labour intensity is likely to reduce soon, at least in the field. Birdhurst Orchards employs 55-60 fulltime permanent staff, and that number balloons to around 420 during harvest, while at the same time Golden Bay Fruit, which has three shareholders, employs a further 120 in the Motueka pack-house. With robotics well established in pack-houses, the technological push is to reduce the massive labour input required by picking, pruning and thinning. “There’s a fair way to go down this path yet,” Richard says. “We think robotic harvesting, for example, is eight to ten years away – not close enough or developed enough for us to get into yet, but inevitable.” In the meantime Birdhurst Orchards, a member of the regional labour scheme that brings in Pasifika workers for seven months of the horticultural year, remains dependent at harvest time on pickers, pruners and thinners from Vanuata and Samoa. ,'2 @3< 2''& -; )?'& (!9;W @9;'1 '9-+2 !2& 29;!££!ধ32 d @&8!<£-$ @9;'19 d 39' !2& -ষ2+9 d 3168'99'& -8 c 2'<1!ধ$9 c !$<<1 d -6' !2& <#' d -£ 2!£@9-9 !2& 32&-ধ32-2+ d @9;'1$!8' 32;8!$;9 d @£-2&'8 '8=-$'9 24 HOUR Even at this level the technological pull is being felt. “Some of our Pacific islands workers have been coming back to us annually for the 14 years we’ve been able to employ them,” Richard says. “They’ve developed management and technical skills that are giving them a career path as well, and they’re becoming much more valuable to us and the industry than unskilled casual labourers.” “Robotics are coming more and more into the horticultural industries and are changing the profiles of the workers they need.” www.cwsnz.co.nz SUPPLIERS OF HORTICULTURAL IRRIGATION NELSON TASMAN CompleteWaterSolutions
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