“We ve never had so much turnover. A lot of them, haven t got staying power. “Our biggest requirement is for potato and onion harvesting. We re about halfway through the onions and 25 per cent through potatoes. “I m confident we ll harvest them all. It s highly mechanised now with only one 10th labour required compared to 50 years ago when it was largely manual labour.” Turley said they had been fortunate to get nine essential skilled staff from England, Ireland and France for driving harvesters.
John Bisset/Stuff
Boners working hard at Alliance Smithfield, Timaru. The company is seeking boners, butchers and labourers. (File photo)
John Bisset/Stuff
The San Aotea II, pictured leaving Timaru s port in early June, berthed back in Timaru in August 2020.
A rescue and a retrieval featured prominently in June’s news coverage out of South Canterbury, writes Doug Sail in the sixth instalment of our series looking back on the year that was. Sanford deep-water fleet manager Darryn Shaw said the trip to the South Georgia Islands was necessary because of the impact of Covid-19, which had made it difficult to get people out of the Falkland Islands. ‘‘Normally we would bring our people back by air, via South America, but that is not possible at this time with borders closed into that region,’’ Shaw said.