Vegetable growers say they don't get enough recognition, despite exporting over $500 million of produce a year - more than twice as much as the more glamorous wine industry.
Tomato grower Brian Gargiulo said he did not think it was fair that wine got a better press than the vegetable industry.
Mr
Gargiulo, president of Vegfed, the 3000-strong Vegetable and Potato Growers' Federation, said all he could do was talk to the politicians.
"They say they're working on cleaning up the barriers to our exports but there's still a lot of them around the world."
Vegetables and their growers are taken for granted, he said.
"When a trade delegation goes overseas we're not invited, though the wine industry is. That's because they're glamorous and we're not - we don't present gold medals for cauliflowers."
Mr Gargiulo also wanted recognition for the hard work put into the vegetable industry by its workers. They work long hours battling pests and the extremes of weather, getting very dirty in the process.
He was supported by Geoff Lewis, a Horowhenua asparagus grower and part-owner of a packhouse that by season's end will have packed 350 tonnes of asparagus.
He depends on a pool of about 100 seasonal labourers who move around the region picking and packing onions, asparagus, squash, potatoes and fruit.
Tendertips, the company he and Margo Shaw run, packs for growers from Rangitikei, Manawatu and Horowhenua and this season will send 170 tonnes to Japan. With marketer Freshco, they aim their product at Japan's high-value supermarkets.
Japan is also the main market for squash exporters, though attempts are being made to enter Korea and the United States.
- NZPA
