Levy Proposed by the Nursery & Garden Association of NZ

In Mid April NZFGA board members along with representatives from NZ Export growers Organisation and the Calla Council, met the ‘Nursery & Garden Industry of NZ’ executive officer John Liddle and board chairman Andrew Harrison  at UFG Mt Wellington. Discuss was about a levy proposal by NGINZ under the ‘Commodities Levies Act’.

The following are the main points

• The levy would apply to any business (grower) that grows plants for a commercial return. Whether they are sold or used by the grower in his own production facility.

• The levy applies not only to the nursery, garden & amenity sectors of horticulture but all businesses that grow plants for commercial return. So only members of the cut flower industry who grows plants either to sell to other flower growers - or for their own production of flowers would be required to pay the levy if it is passed.  [The levy at first ‘take’ appears to cover all horticultural sectors but is actually only applied to the plant raising or nursery operations]

• There are some exceptions – producing flowers from bulbs is excluded. If seeds are used for direct sowing into a paddock or greenhouse and the flowers are then harvested there would be no levy to pay.

• The levy would be 0.03% of the value of the plants produced, so for every $1000 of plants produced a levy of $3 would be incurred.  All levy payers automatically become members of NGINZ.

• Money gathered would be used for  1) becoming a signatory to and providing a readiness fund for GIA [government – industry agreement] for dealing with Biosecurity breaches.   2)  Putting more money into R & D   3) Training & labour issues.   4) Create best practice guidelines 5) Use power of collective bargaining.

• If you are a plant producer you would be eligible to vote but must first register with NGINZ. The voting process and data collation is carried ,out by a third party, NGINZ does not have access to any of  the details only the aggregated totals

Given that the levy does not directly involve or affect the cut flower industry NZFGA is taking a neutral position as to whether the growers of plants within the cut flower industry vote for or against the levy.

Following our own meeting the NGINZ representatives met in Wellington with representatives from many other sectors. Industry feedback from that meeting indicates that the major question asked was – ‘could all the different sectors work together and at what cost?’ It is expected that this will take some time to work through before a vote could be considered.

The magazine for the nursery industry “Commercial Horticulture  ” can provide more information and they are also running a ‘Forum for Levy Discussion’ at www.nursery.net.nz