People Power: Planning for Workforce Implications in Land Use Decisions

What’s stopping New Zealand from making a widespread change to more high-value, lower-emissions horticulture?

The list is long and varied, but one challenge often overlooked by policy makers and regional development advocates – if not farmers – is the people power: do we have enough workers for this land use?

A new digital tool from Our Land and Water and Scarlatti allows farmers, catchment groups, and regional planners to get clarity on the required labour needs for different land uses, including different crops at varying stages of development.

The Worker Requirements by Land Use interactive dashboard draws on data from the Data Supermarket to suggest a list of land-use options that are potentially suitable for the region. For every hectare of land converted to one of the options, users are then able to see the demand for full-time equivalent (FTE) workers for different seasons.

The research was developed in partnership with the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) and the New Zealand Institute of Economic Research (NZIER), with the interactive dashboard being one part of the broader project.

Kenny Bell, senior research manager at Scarlatti and lead researcher on the project, says, “The project highlights that for many regions, shifting a relatively small amount of land to horticulture could lead to persistent labour shortages. A regional ‘boom’ in horticulture is likely to result in intense worker shortages, particularly in high seasons.”

Bell explains that this places a constraint on the capacity to change and has implications for rural development schemes.

Alongside the demand for workers, the dashboard also provides complementary land-use diversification options that can smooth workforce requirements over a year, offering more stability to employees.

Labour shortages could also be addressed by converting some pastoral land to low-workforce forestry, such as carbon forestry or unmanaged native reversion, freeing up labour for high-workforce horticulture.

What are the options? 

The broader research project showed that labour shortages could also be addressed by converting some pastoral land to low-workforce forestry, such as carbon forestry or unmanaged native reversion, freeing up labour for high-workforce horticulture. Increasing wages to attract new workers and expanding the work-ready population through immigration are also both options, although Bell cautions these solutions present their own challenges.  

Meanwhile, research findings reveal that the shift to horticulture may present a particular opportunity for Māori. Māori participants in the research highlighted the potential benefits of higher value crops on iwi and hapū land, and the attraction some tangata whenua may feel to return to their rohe, if work was available.

All these options have wider implications for policy across economic development, primary sector, immigration and more.

The lesson? For a successful transition to a ‘mosaic of land uses’ that includes pastoral and horticultural farms, farmers need to consider the demand and availability of workers in their region. Policymakers and regional development planners also need to keep workforce capacity and drivers in mind when advocating or planning for changes to land use.

More information:

• Worker Implications of Land Use Change project
• Worker Requirements Digital Toolshed webinar