New Zealand Apples & Pears Conference
The theme for the 2021 Apples & Pears Conference is Building Resilience in Challenging Times. And haven’t the past 13 months been challenging? Who would have thought at Christmas 2019 that a global pandemic would shut economies down, impacting access to a reliable labour force, and disrupting logistics and markets.
This year's conference will focus on the learnings from COVID and how we must respond in a world turned upside-down by the pandemic. It will look at ongoing challenges and strategies to address these; the workforce and orchard of the future; the transition to automation and sustainability; loss of chemistry; future of assurances; and the changing role that Prevar will play in our future.
Ganesh Nana, Chair of the New Zealand Productivity Commission will present on the workforce of the future. Shifting more and more of our businesses closer to the global frontier is critical for improvement to our productivity and wellbeing. Central to that effort is lifting our innovation efforts in conjunction with future workforce developments. The workforce of the future will look very different to that of the present. The demographics are clear and predictable. But there are changing immigration policy settings and preferences. Then there are skills, training, experiences, and capability to build. Additionally, there is the influence of drone, robotic, and other technologies. This session explores these factors in looking towards a productive, sustainable, and resilient economy.