Bumper crops keeping kumara prices down

Some kumara growers are responding by reducing their planting areas to focus on other parts of their business like dairy and beef.

Prices for orange kumara have dropped below $2/kg, while red kumara prices are also down, hovering around $3.50/kg.

Warm, dry conditions led to the 2021 crop being 35% higher than the previous season and about 25,000 tonnes were harvested.

Vegetables NZ director and Northland kumara grower Warwick Simpson told Hort News that the 2022 yield has also been higher for most. Growers are trying to cope with the drop in revenue.

“They are tightening their belt, reducing their spending and hoping next season is better,” he says. “Some growers are reducing area to focus on other elements of their business, for example dairy or beef."

The bumper crop last year took growers a month longer to sell their crop, cutting the 2022 selling season by a month as well.

“A particularly large oversupply of orange kumara is bringing the price down, but this is bringing down the price of red as well,” Simpson says.

Planting for the new season will start this month. Many growers finished putting in seedbeds to grow plants and slips which are then cut and planted out in the paddock.

Simpson believes that, like other farmers, kumara growers are enduring challenging times.

“I think we’re in a particularly bad situation at the moment because of the high cost of living and we’re just starting to come out the other side of Covid,” he explains.

“High cost of living is causing consumers to buy less fresh vegetables, resulting in oversupply and low prices.”

Covid has also made the overall labour situation difficult because of the lack of backpackers, and difficulties around the Recognised Seasonal Employer (RSE) scheme.

While most growers use casual labourers for preparing seedbeds, Simpson says the labour issue could arise when planting starts.

“We’ll find out how the labour situation really is when we start planting,” he told Hort News.

“With some luck, the removal of Covid restrictions will see backpackers back in, and our labour challenges will be eased. Once we get past those, things will improve.”

Simpson says other challenges facing growers right now include dramatically increased fuel and fertiliser prices. He adds that there are some long-term challenges including tighter controls on agrichemicals, freshwater farm plans and climate change (both the effects and compliance), which will need to be worked through.

Kumara in NZ

Kumara was brought to NZ over one thousand years ago from the Pacific islands by early Māori settlers.

The majority of kumara is grown in Northland, in the Dargaville and Northern Wairoa regions where soil type and climatic conditions suit it perfectly.

There are different varieties of kumara, however, only three are commercially available in New Zealand. The most common is the red-skinned Owairaka Red, which has a creamy white flesh and is sold as Red.

Gold kumara, sometimes sold as Toka Toka Gold, has a golden skin and flesh and a sweeter taste than red.

Orange kumara has a rich orange flesh and is sweeter than both red and gold.