Our lousy summer: Buyers holding back from fruit and vegetables

Unseasonably wet weather has produced an abundance of fruit and vegetables around the country but no one appears to want to eat them.

The lack of sales is worrying commercial growers. Vegfed president Brian Gargiulo says a glut in the market has meant lower prices while the rain has "just encouraged everything to grow and grow".

"Tomatoes, for example, would be half the cost of what they were this time last year. There are plenty around but demand is very low," he said.

"We want people to be in the mood to eat them, particularly salad lines, but the weather's not causing them to be in that mood."

Mr Gargiulo said the growth pattern was the same everywhere but demand for greens was poor. "I don't know whether people are changing their eating habits or what they are doing. I haven't seen the weather like this for many, many years but it's changing what people do. I mean, how many barbecues have you had lately?

"It affects growers tremendously because their income just gets cut in half for the same amount of work."

At the Miramar Fruit Supply in Wellington, vegetables were going cheap to get them out the door, but the real bargain was berry fruit. Owner Kim Chin said that on Christmas Eve punnets of raspberries were selling for $7.95 each. Yesterday they were $2.95. "People aren't buying very much at all. They're probably still on holiday so just getting a little bit at a time."

In Whangarei pumpkin and kumara was "hard to come by" at Onerahi Fruit and Veges but other vegetables were selling normally.

At The Vege Pot in Christchurch cauliflower, cabbage and broccoli were abundant as the rain had encouraged their growth but pumpkin was trickier to find.

Drownings down over holiday period

Drownings were down over the Christmas holiday period but surf lifesavers still had their work cut out despite bad weather.

The drowning toll from Christmas Eve until January 5 was six. This compared with 11 in 2003-04 and 19 in 2002-03.

Water Safety New Zealand said rain and cold weather helped to keep the toll low.

But lifesavers reported almost as many rescues between Labour Weekend and December 31 as they did in the same period in 2003.

Surf Life Saving New Zealand said the poor weather stopped people going to the beach, but they went in droves on the few fine days.

There was one recreational drowning in the December 24 to January 5 period, on Christmas Day at Raglan.

The other drownings, classed as non-recreational, included three young Pukekohe girls whose van plunged into a river in Taranaki.

In previous years, recreational drownings outnumbered non-recreational, Water Safety said.

Drownings have fallen from about 180 a year in the 1980s to about 120 a year since 2000, despite growing numbers of people taking up watersports.

But Water Safety said some people still ignored basic advice such as swimming between the flags.

Surf lifesavers performed 247 rescues between Labour Weekend and December 31 - just 19 fewer than in the same period last year.

Mangawhai Heads, north of Auckland, recorded the highest number of rescues so far, with lifeguards rescuing 47 people since October.

Poor weather was also one of the reasons for the lowest holiday road toll since the 1959-1960 period, said road safety campaigner Clive Matthew-Wilson.

There were 435 road deaths last year, 26 fewer than 2003 and the second-lowest toll in 41 years.