| 17 T T Virginia Wright Hops venture off to a promising start Jason Johnson: “We’ve had two very successful harvests already...” Nelson Lakes Hops REGIONAL DEVELOPMENT It’s been around three years since 30 New Zealand shareholders got together to convert part of a 1200-hectare dairy farm in Nelson into a production area for export-quality hops. General manager Jason Johnson was one of them. “We purchased this property because the research we did on the weather conditions and the availability of water and the prospects for marketing with the beautiful native bush around ticked all the boxes,” Jason explains. The group’s very clear goal was for Nelson Lakes Hops to grow the best hops available and they knew that the area’s weather conditions were perfect for growing a top-quality product. They also knew that the only way to make it work was to do things at scale. When completed, the land will have around 370 hectares of canopy, or effective growing area, not counting the roads, building sites, and so on. Jason has been in horticulture in one form or another for 35 years. Before moving into hops in 2012 he had grown apples, kiwifruit and berries – all in the Tasman Region. He knows what’s required to make the business a success, and so far so good. “We’ve had two very successful harvests already. We’ve achieved about 80 hectares per year of planting over the three years and we’ve also been preparing the land and building the support structures for the plants, installing irrigation and built two processing plants,” he says. The target export market for their baled hops is selected craft breweries around the world, but before it gets that far there is a lot of work to do and a lot of people needed to do it. The farm is about 35 minutes out of Murchison, so while some of their labour force travels from there, they also knew they needed accommodation on site to attract people to come and work. At peak season, from around July to December, they need some 80 casual workers, which HOME CONTROL Control4 & C-Bus approved installers Heat Pumps | Security | AV Design & Installation | Lighting Design 34 BEACH RD, RICHMOND | 0800 545 515 ‘ALL ELECTRICAL’ Proudly supporting Nelson Lakes Hops breaks down to be a combination of about 70% locals from the region, 20% RSE’s (Recognised Seasonal Employees) from Fiji and 10% holiday workers. To house them, they are building a 35-bed complex comprising15 twin rooms and five singles, an attached kitchen, and a recreational room. It is all well-insulated, double-glazed and has air-conditioning. “The kitchen block has four full stainless-steel work areas with hobs and fridges and so on, and we’ve put freezers in the laundry along with four washing machines, and a couple of driers. “We’ve got four bathrooms, including one full paraplegic one. It’s all hard-wearing but cheerful, and we provide all the linen plus a weekly laundering, and a cleaner does a weekly deep clean,” explains Jason. They have also built three houses to accommodate those of their 18 permanent management staff that don’t live locally. As Jason says. it’s a really exciting project on a scale not seen in New Zealand as far as hops go. Establishing the only horticultural initiative within a sea of dairy farms stretching 100kms brings a healthy and welcome injection of cash as the new industry settles into the region for the long term. So far, the signs are good that Nelson Lakes Hops will continue to grow and thrive exactly as intended, resulting in contented craft beer drinkers far and wide. “We purchased this property because the research we did on the weather conditions and the availability of water and the prospects for marketing with the beautiful native bush around ticked all the boxes.”
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