Vanuatu farm grows from RSE experience

Transcript

An employer in the Recognised Seasonal Employers Scheme in New Zealand has gone the extra mile by helping his former workers set up Tanna Farms in the southern Vanuatu province.
 
A director of Vinepower, a vineyard contracting service in Blenheim, Jono Bushell, says two years ago he followed his RSE workers home to see how they spent their earnings and saw the potential for them to make better use of coconuts growing on Tanna.

Jenny Meyer reports on the spin-offs from the scheme.

Viticulturist Jono Bushell says some of his workers are now business partners and have acquired land on Tanna planting coffee, yam, chillies and taro. He says there are real advantages for both New Zealand and Vanuatu.

JONO BUSHELL: It's a two way thing. You're offering them employment that is not available to them here. Then they can generate a really good income to provide for families and communities. For us the growers, it's given us a skilled viable workforce that come on an annual basis and are improving the quality of our crops.

Jono Bushell says the first export of coconut oil products has just been sent to New Zealand.

JONO BUSHELL: We're currently producing virgin coconut oil. And we're about to have a bit of a launch in New Zealand over the next couple of weeks of our products. Which is oil which we are selling as cooking oil, very high quality cooking oil. It also can be used on the skin and as a moisturiser and also a little bit of soap that we are producing.

Sharyn Blick is Vinepower's RSE pastoral caregiver in Blenheim and she says they prefer to have returning workers because they know what they are doing and when they get back to New Zealand from Vanuatu they get straight back on the job.

SHARYN BLICK: The winter is stripping and wrapping and in the summer it's a variety, it's wire lifting, bud rubbing, fruit thinning; all that sort of stuff and then it finishes off with a hand pick. You can tell the ones that are working from home because they are good workers here. They seem to be more conscientious since they've got a job to go home to.

She says the experienced workers who have had several seasons on the RSE scheme are a real help to the new arrivals who experience a huge culture shock when they first arrive from Vanuatu.

SHARYN BLICK: A lot of them have no idea with the electricity. And also being guys, the ladies run after them at home and do all the cooking and everything, so it's a new experience for a lot of them having to do the cooking as well.

Jono Bushell says Tanna Farms' real breakthrough came when he met with an investor Cornelia Wyllie who owns a food company called Vanuatu Direct. She says the root crop taro is now being regularly shipped the 200 kilometres from Tanna to Efate.

JONO BUSHELL: The coffee bushes, it's a bit like an orchard in New Zealand, the trees take a number of years before they come into production. So between the trees, before the coffee starts to crop, they plant cash crops. Those cash crops are root crops, which is what we are buying. The RSE workers, when they are back home, actually get a bit of a cash flow before their orchard starts producing.

Cornelia Wyllie says the taro is processed and used as a key ingredient in a traditional tribal food called Natur'kai or Simboro which is now being exported to restaurants and other customers in New Zealand.

CORNELIA WYLLIE: It's got a delicate flavour. It's a root crop which is a starch. But because there is a very high percentage of coconut milk and coconut cream in it and the nutriceutical values are coming from the tropical island leaf. We call it Island Cabbage here but it's actually a bush that produces a dark rich green leaf that's got amazing health properties.

Cornelia Wyllie says there's been an explosion in demand for her company's food products and local women staffing the factory work on contracts so that they profit as the business grows.