Kiwifruit picking - Analysis and Conclusion

The kiwifruit harvest season is ending in a few days. It was an interesting experience for me, as you can read in Part 1 and Part 2. My goal was to find out more about the kiwifruit industry, and perhaps earn some spare cash in the process. Among the things that I wanted to find out were:

Question 1: How does the kiwifruit industry work?

My research only covered the harvesting. The pay rate for kiwifruit picking is between NZD14.5-16.5 per bin, depending on the orchard. My crew picked between 7-9 bins per person per day, making between NZD100-130. Over a 14-day period, I worked 76 hours and made NZD1009, which translates to about NZD13.3/hr. This is actually below New Zealand's minimum wage of NZD13.75/hr, which means I would have been better off working at McDonald's. :-(
        However, there are backpackers on other crews that made over NZD20/hr. Obviously, they made good money. Why the discrepancy? Two reasons: the orchard where I worked paid less (NZD14.5/bin), and I picked slow. I estimate that I picked about 6 bins/day. Each bin is about 400kg, which means that I picked about 2400kg of kiwifruits every day. That's 2.4 tons of kiwifruit every day.
        At New World, a NZ supermarket chain, kiwifruits are selling for NZD1.99/kg. At that price, those 2.4 tons of fruits would retail for 4,776 dollars. How much money did I get? About 87 dollars, or less than 2% of the retail price. I imagine the rest of the money goes to the farmer, packhouse, supermarket, transportation, storage, and marketing. Think about it, the next time you buy kiwifruits at the supermarket.

Question 2: Can you make a living picking kiwifruit?

The answer is yes, but it's hard. Over a 2-week perioud, I made about 1,000 dolars. But after subtracting my expenses, I was left with only about 270 dollars:

Pay	1009
-Tax (see Note 1)	126
-Accommodation	300
-Food (see Note 2)	280
-Petrol	33
Savings	270

It's not a lot of money, but it's not bad either. Another problem with picking kiwifruit to earn money to travel, which many backpackers do, is the work schedule. I only get days off when it's raining, which makes it hard to see the local attractions.
        However, there is a perk to picking kiwifruit: I get to eat lots of delicious kiwifruit everyday. :-) (see Note 3)

Note 1: New Zealand tax rate is higher than Malaysia. Tax is 10.5% for income between NZD0-14,000. Hence if you make only 1 dollar, you still have to pay tax. In addition to income tax, you also have to pay 2% for accident and disability insurance (equivalent to SOCSO in Malaysia).

Note 2: My average daily food expense is 20 dollars. I usually order takeaways for dinner. If I cooked dinner I could have reduced the food expense, but I was usually too tired after a full day's work.

Note 3: All the kiwifruits we pick are half ripe. This is because they need to be stored for up 6 months for export. They're as hard as a rock, and don't taste good. However, occasionally we find one that's ripe and soft. We're supposed to throw it away, because putting the ripe fruit into the bin will cause all the other fruits to ripen and spoil. In practice, we simply ate it. As the fruit is ripe, it tastes delicious.