Horticulture export revenue is forecast to rise 7 percent to $9.5 billion in the year to 30 June 2026, driven by record export volumes of kiwifruit and apples alongside elevated prices.
Volume records are the interesting part. Price is external; volume reflects what the sector actually did.
Volume growth has constraints attached
Record volumes require three things simultaneously: fruit on the trees, labour to pick and pack it, and market access to sell it. Each is a separate constraint and each can bind independently.
Planted area and variety is the slowest to change. Much of the sector’s value sits in licensed varieties where planting rights are controlled rather than freely available, which supports returns and limits how fast supply can respond to price.
Labour is the constraint that binds most often at harvest.
Market access is the one that can disappear overnight and take the whole category with it.
Seasonal labour and the RSE obligations
The Recognised Seasonal Employer scheme supplies a large share of horticulture’s peak labour. The obligations go well beyond ordinary employment law:
- Guaranteed minimum hours and pay at or above the rate specified for the scheme.
- Suitable accommodation, with costs that must be reasonable and are subject to review. Standards are actively inspected.
- Pastoral care — orientation, health services access, banking, transport.
- Contribution to travel costs and responsibility for return home.
- Health insurance arrangements.
- Records covering hours, deductions, accommodation charges and pastoral care activity.
Deductions are the most common area of non-compliance. Accommodation and transport charges must be agreed in writing and must not take pay below the required minimum. Employers have been found in breach for deductions that seemed modest individually but cumulatively reduced take-home pay below the threshold.
Monitoring has tightened, with unannounced site visits and more willingness to suspend or revoke employer status. For a grower who has built their labour model around RSE, losing that status is commercially severe.
The scheme also requires genuine efforts to recruit domestically first, and documenting those efforts is part of the obligation rather than a formality.
Market access is a shared asset
Export horticulture depends on access negotiated government-to-government and maintained through MPI certification that importing countries rely on.
That is why compliance failures matter beyond the individual business. A residue detection or a pest finding can suspend access for an entire category, regardless of who caused it.
Residues are the recurring risk. Maximum residue limits differ between markets. A compound compliant domestically may exceed the limit in a destination market, or be unregulated here and restricted there.
Following the label alone is not sufficient. Your post-harvest operator or marketer should specify what is permitted for the markets your fruit actually goes to. Spray diaries are the evidence when a question arises and they cannot be reconstructed afterwards.
Agrichemical compliance runs through several regimes at once
Application engages hazardous substances controls under the approved label, regional plan rules on discharge to air, workplace health and safety duties, and ordinary civil liability if spray lands on a neighbour.
Regional rules on buffer zones, wind limits, notification and records differ between regions, and a contractor working across boundaries is working under more than one set.
Drift onto a neighbouring organic block or a residue-sensitive crop can destroy a season’s value, and the claim will exceed the value of the work. Check your insurance actually covers spray drift liability, since exclusions are common.
Packhouse safety
Packhouses concentrate seasonal risk — machinery, forklifts, manual handling, and a workforce that is largely new each season. Induction and training before the peak rather than during it is where the safety outcome is determined.
MPI publishes export requirements and market access information, Immigration New Zealand publishes RSE employer obligations, and the EPA publishes hazardous substances controls. All free.
Figures: Ministry for Primary Industries, Situation and Outlook for Primary Industries, forecast for the year to 30 June 2026. General information only, not legal advice.
