HortNZ’s Julian Raine, Mike Chapman and Sue Pickering, as well as Gary Jones from Pipfruit NZ, attended the meeting to represent the industry.

Horticulture received plenty of mentions in the presentations, in particular, the figures showing there were 2,553 production horticulture trainees last year, a 16% increase on the number of trainees in 2014. At the same time, there has been an 18% downturn in dairy trainees.

Other key indicators from the AGM were that 80% of trainees completed their training (the target being 62%), and 29,515 people now training with the Primary ITO – HortNZ says that these are great numbers for horticulture.