Alix Te Kere is a health and safety advisor for Rockit Management Services in Hastings. Photo / Alphapix
Alix Te Kere is one of three wāhine Māori finalists in the annual Ahuwhenua Young Māori Grower Award, along with Erica Henare and Grace Rehu.
Te Kere, who is Ngāti Kahungunu, Ngāti Tu, Ngāti Maru and Ngāti Maniapoto, is a health and safety advisor for snack apple grower Rockit Management Services in Hastings.
The 30-year-old placed second in last year’s Hawke’s Bay Young Fruit Grower of the Year competition and was encouraged by a number of people to enter the Ahuwhenua Young Māori Grower Award.
“I thought it would be good to just enter and see how I go. Being Māori, we work with the land and we live with it. So, it's just something that comes natural to where my whānau is from,” Te Kere told EIT Te Pūkenga, where she completed a horticulture apprenticeship programme.
Te Kere was shocked when she discovered she was a finalist.
“It did come as a surprise because the competition is nationwide. It's spread out to all of New Zealand. So you've got a lot of good competitors within the New Zealand region in horticulture. So I was actually surprised and shocked that I placed.”
To get to this point, Te Kere went through a rigorous process with judges coming to her workplace to meet her and her boss. She was questioned on her knowledge of horticulture, her whānau, and how tikanga Māori is playing a big role in horticulture.
The finals involve a three-day study course in Tauranga and further input on tikanga Māori before the winner is announced on 9 June.
It has been a tough road for Te Kere, who completed her last year of high school while she was pregnant with her first son. She was on the benefit, and with the responsibility to provide for him she knew she did not want to be on the benefit forever.
She joined Crasborn Bros when she turned eighteen, working night shifts while her son slept so she could spend the daytime with him. Once the packing season ended, she started in the orchards. It was only meant to be temporary, but she fell in love with being outside and being in the orchards and was grateful to have people there who taught her the basics of orcharding.
Te Kere worked in early childhood while she was hapū with her second son, then again with her third son, before joining Rockit in 2018. She is loving her role.
“I have an amazing connection with all the staff in field, helped by my strong background as an orchard hand and just by being that person people can rely on – that’s what makes my job fun and exciting. Sometimes tiring, but it’s a good work life balance," she said.
“Working in health and safety means that I look after the people within our company to ensure that they are safe and protected and that we are doing our best to make sure that they're in a good working environment. Because at the end of the day, you want to go home the way you came to work alive basically.
“But I see it as every worker in the orchard is someone's child and to make sure that they are in a good working environment.”
Te Kere's fellow finalists are Erica Henare (Ngāti Kahungunu, Ngāti Maniapoto), who is a pipfruit and kiwifruit manager at Kono NZ in Motueka, and Grace Rehu (Rangitāne, Taranaki), a leading hand at Turners and Growers in Puketapu, Hawke’s Bay.
Erica Henare (Ngāti Kahungunu, Ngāti Maniapoto) is a pipfruit and kiwifruit manager at Kono NZ in Motueka. Photo / Alphapix
Erica Henare, 27, first went to Motueka for a holiday before deciding to join Kono as a casual thinner for the summer break. She quickly fell in love with the job and the environment and from there doors opened and her career accelerated, the Ahuwhenua Trophy website says.
She is responsible for the day-to-day operations for a large part of the iwi-owned organisation's orchard and working teams which grow apples, kiwifruit, pears and hops.
Away from the orchard, Henare enjoys spending time with her whānau and three sons, aged nine, eight and seven. Their favourite getaway is the beach. Her future goal is to buy a home for her and her sons.
Grace Rehu (Rangitāne, Taranaki) is a leading hand at Turners and Growers in Puketapu, Hawke’s Bay. Photo / Alphapix
Grace Rehu, 21, grew up in Foxton and moved to Hawke’s Bay when she was 10. Her first introduction to horticulture was working at a strawberry farm in Hastings every summer school holidays, the Ahuwhenua website says.
During her last year at high school, she worked night shifts at Turners and Growers packhouse, eventually moving into quality control after she finished school. But she wanted to work outdoors again so moved to the development team where she got experience planting and redeveloping blocks.
She is now in a team of 15 permanent staff working across 100 hectares of apple orchards and currently supervises a Samoan RSE team of 11 for the harvest season. Her goal is to successfully run a block from planting to harvest and eventually be a manager.
“If I can do it, so can our future wāhine and tāne,” said Rehu, who wants to inspire rangatahi and show them horticulture is more than just picking apples.
She enjoys spending time with whānau and being at the beach, fishing and diving.
This is only the second year the competition for the Young Māori Grower has been held.
This article has been updated to remove reference to a field day mentioned in an EIT release. Ahuwhenua advises that the finalists do not compete in such an event.