Agribusiness Report: Covid impact felt in January in agribusiness

Ministry of Primary Industries chief executive Ray Smith.

Ministry of Primary Industries chief executive Ray Smith says the impact of the Covid-19 crisis started early for MPI "as an agency".

Smith says in late January, MPI started to observe the impact. Their biosecurity workforce — around 300 people at air passenger terminals — saw about 20,000 people passing through daily.

"The very first issue for us became the safety of our staff with the number of people coming to New Zealand," he recalls. "At that point in time the concern was China. We acted early to make sure our staff had protective equipment. We were one of the first companies to give our staff PPE (personal protective equipment) and Perspex screens at the airport.

"While we had a few people that had Covid, none of them picked it up through the course of undertaking their work."

By early February, MPI was countering emerging issues in the forestry sector with too many logs sitting on wharves in China. Similarly for rock lobster where 98 per cent of NZ's crayfish is exported to China.

"Those were huge issues. But it was when we headed into lockdown that things really started to intensify."

Following the lockdown announcement, MPI pulled together a conference call with people right across the primary sector. Smith says it was on that call that MPI set a standard for how it would operate through the crisis.

"People were incredibly grateful to be given the opportunity to continue to operate as essential services — there was a great fear at the time that many more things would be closed down.

"We were very clear about the gravity of the situation we were facing. But we had the potential to manage this well and show what could be done."

Over the course of the following few weeks, MPI officials visited about 4000 premises. Smith says the agency set some high standards, and it was very challenging for some reasons — those in big processing areas like meat plants, dairy companies, horticultural pack houses — where there were large volumes of people working together. Enforcing those rules had a big impact on their productivity and he says MPI was aware of that. "But they adopted protocols, enforced them, and were actually grateful to have someone come out and verify from MPI they were adhering to good practice. We wouldn't let each other down. It was a real test of positive relationships and working together to achieve a good outcome for New Zealanders."

Says Smith: "It wasn't easy in all areas. We did have some people in a couple of meat plants that had Covid, and in the dairy factory — but because of the protocols they never spread the disease, and it didn't result in any closures. That level of cooperation, and the way we rallied together to get it right for New Zealand shone through and is something we can all be very proud of."

The Herald put a number of questions to Smith:

Herald: How did you manage early on with your people in market?

Over February and March, we were bringing our people from China and Japan and other countries home. Our deputy director general for China relations — Tim Knox — went the other way. We felt that market was so important that we had our most senior person there throughout. He is still over there, and we have more MPI staff over in the next few weeks. We'll back to our full complement by August. That has been an important priority for us — to have our people back in market.

Herald: Was there anything that really surprised you as you got further into the crisis?

The level of interdependence. We are managing a biological system, and it works on a season and pattern. You can't turn off things for four weeks and just go back to normal.

Animals have to be able to reared, farmed, go into works and sold — or else you end up with a backlog somewhere. All of these things are heavily interdependent.

And there is a challenge for us around some of our systems when these crises hit. It was made worse for us because there was a drought as well as Covid. At one point there were worries about feed coming out of Malaysia — but all of these issues resolved themselves. My colleagues across government were critically important to making sure there was good flow at the border.

The forestry industry was largely closed. But we didn't close it all down. The plant in Kawerau that produces chlorine, which is needed for our drinking water remained open. We have to have packaging materials so that our produce could be shipped offshore; paper produced for newsprint. We made an early call that we needed to allow people that work in nurseries to go and look after the plants. We couldn't just close everything down — if those people stayed home, we would have lost more than one season of product.

Herald: What about the NZ brand story and implications for how the sector dealt with Covid-19?

The great thing going forward for New Zealand is how it has dealt with Covid has reinforced the confidence for NZ that you can trust the products that come out of it.

The e-certification of products into China emerged through this period as well, and became very important since documents were not able to flow as easily. There is a real opportunity to change things, because people have become more used to doing things digitally. I suspect in some ways our productivity was enhanced!

Herald: Are there any lessons for the future from dealing with the Covid-19 crisis?

We couldn't have achieved what we did without having relationships, trust and a sense that we are all in this together. What I was really worried about was that New Zealand was making a huge sacrifice by keeping most people at home. When we were sending people to work — particularly in meat plants and packhouses with large numbers of people — we could not become a vector of disease through poor practice. But we proved we could do it.

Herald: What are the big challenges you are facing now?

We have a great primary sector, but one of the big challenges we will have is attracting more New Zealanders to come into the workforce as part of the recovery effort. We will have a campaign over the next few weeks to encourage Kiwis to come and work right across the primary sector.

Also maintaining our presence in market, and the inevitable levels of protectionism that might creep in as people see jobs disappear in other economies. And in getting that message out that New Zealand is here, we have great products, and you can trust us.