Ratonga Tautoko Support Services

Support Services is an overarching name for a collection of industries that supports the outputs of the food and fibre production sector. This grouping is not an industry in its own right, and the issues for each area are individual. They are necessarily diverse and the binding feature is that they are about services provided that are required for the sector to operate. Support Services includes a wide variety of jobs from pest control to artificial insemination, and sheep dipping. These are roles which are crucial to the success of the wider food and fibre sector, with some jobs such as sheep dipping going back to 1280AD in Britain, when tar was rubbed into the fleeces of the sheep as a remedy for scab.

The Support Services group is divided into: 

• Hunting and Trapping
• Landscaping Construction Services
• Other Agricultural Product Wholesaling
• Other Agriculture and Fishing Support Services

These industries can overlap with multiple parts of the food and fibre sector, with the most common being Nursery, Turf and Gardening; Arable; Sheep, Beef and Deer; Fruit; and Vegetables. For example, fencing is mainly a support service for land-based industries such as Nursery, Turf and Gardening; Arable; and Sheep, Beef and Deer industries but is not relevant to industries such as Seafood and Veterinary Nursing, whereas artificial insemination is a support service in livestock production such as Sheep, Beef and Deer, but is not relevant to Nursery, Turf and Gardening or Arable. These crossovers create some complexities that are unique to the Support Services industry group.

Together these sub-industries represent the largest grouping of employees across the food and fibre sector. In 2021, we counted over 64,100 people in the Support Services workforce, with 11% of the workforce being on work or work holiday visas. Many of these roles are very specific or seasonal. The seasonal nature of several sub-industries means that some areas have a transitory workforce, and in certain cases this also makes it difficult to attract and retain staff. There is an opportunity within these challenges to review and build qualifications, standards and micro-credentials that are flexible depending on the specific needs of the workforce that, where applicable, are transferrable across the industries and the wider food and fibre sector.

Find out about our work to assess the quality of programmes delivered by providers for this industry here.