Vegetable growers warn supermarket shake-up could push up prices

By Gianina Schwanecke of RNZ

The New Zealand Vegetable Council is calling for more transparency across the supply chain, so consumers know what they are paying for.

The ongoing cost of living, particularly in rising food prices for products in shoppers’ baskets, has seen food security and the supermarket duopoly emerge as a key election issue this year.

The National Party says if it is re-elected, it would split up the New Zealand-owned Foodstuffs, although only after the Commerce Commission investigated to make sure it would benefit consumers.

Meanwhile, the Labour Party has promised to tackle price-gouging and the Green Party has proposed breaking up the supermarket duopoly by setting up a publicly owned “KiwiMart”.

New Zealand Vegetable Council (NZVC) chief executive Mike Brown said growers were already operating under tight margins and about half their growers didn’t know if they’ll still be around in 10 years’ time.

“If growers cannot make a responsible profit, they will go out of business, which will reduce supply and increase the price to the consumer,” he said.

“While we applaud the opportunity to address the cost of living for consumers, in actuality, veggies haven’t been as inflationary as other items in the shopping basket.

“So that points to growers actually operating on very slim margins within the supermarkets.”

Brown said growing vegetables was a risky business, as it was vulnerable to bad weather.

“As we saw with Cyclone Gabrielle, shortages and price rises result when a vegetable-growing region is affected by an adverse weather event.”

Other challenges impacting the industry include energy prices, regulations and repealing the Resource Management Act, urban expansion into productive land and competition with cheaper imported food.

Brown said another emerging challenge is access to gene-edited seed – after the European Parliament recently passed regulation to allow gene-edited plants that don’t introduce foreign DNA.

“What that will mean is seed suppliers offshore will be focusing on EU [European Union] needs, and we’ll really be left off ... the import map for seed.

“So we really have to have some good consideration about changing the settings to allow us access to that seed that will be necessary for our growers to remain viable.”

The NZVC was also calling for a bipartisan, national approach to vegetable production in resource management reform to help address food security issues.

This story was first published on rnz.co.nz