Inconsistent rules 'stifling productivity'

The Minister of Horticulture, Nicola Grigg, told Hort News that many large companies in the sector have sites in up to four different regions and they have told her this lack of consistency in rules governing what they can and can't do in each region is a real barrier to their productivity.

She says one of her major tasks in the coming year is to put an end to this inconsistency.

"My goal is to ensure there are national legislative settings are framed in such a way that the rules can only be interpreted in one way and for me that is a very big piece of work," she says.

Grigg says each regional council seems to interpret rules differently and to that end she plans to visit all the regions and get feedback from growers and orchardists and take this feedback to parliament so that it can be incorporated in new legislation.

She says the other big issue for her in 2025 is removing red tape and eliminating unnecessary and unhelpful processes that stifle productivity in the horticulture sector.

"By early this year we'll see the completion of the RMA Amendment Bill which had it first reading at the end of last year. That is pretty much singularly focused on removing the barriers to the productive agricultural economy so looking forward we will see changes begin to take effect on farm," she says.

During the year she and the agriculture ministers will feed in material to be incorporated in the bill which should be completed by the end of the year or early 2026.

The other area of concern to Grigg is the trade barriers that still apply to horticulture exports. At the end of last year the Horticulture Export Authority released a comprehensive report on barriers to trade for the sector and this showed that existing trade barriers cost the sector $135 million annually. This doesn't include the impact of no-tariff measures (NTMs) which cover separate rules that individual countries apply to imports from NZ, regardless of whether we have an FTA with them.

Grigg says the Government has commissioned a special report on trade barriers which identified that across the whole agri sector there were such 190 such barriers which cost NZ$10 billion a year.

Grigg says the non-tariff measures are very complex and says she is aware that strawberry growers and lime orchardists are suffering because of these.