Can we feed our team of five million first?

Authors: Nick W. Smith1,2, Sarah L. Golding1, Andrew J. Fletcher1,2,3, Jeremy P. Hill1,2,3 , Warren C. McNabb1,2

1Riddet Institute, Massey University, Private Bag 11222, Palmerston North 4442, New Zealand. 2Sustainable Nutrition Initiative, Riddet Institute, Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand. 3Fonterra Research and Development Centre, Private Bag 11029, Palmerston, 4442 New Zealand.

Introduction

The graph above is available in the magazine. Data is also laid out in a clearly readable table in the magazine.

There is growing debate in the New Zealand media and at various meetings, summits and dialogues, as to whether our current local food system dynamics are optimal. The argument being made is that New Zealand produces more food than is required by our population, and yet many people do not have healthy diets, good nutrition or, go hungry. Another claim is that the prices for nutritious foods that we export (e.g. milk and meat) are unaffordable, and driven up by export demand. In a land of plenty, should New Zealanders be accessing food banks? This question raises many issues of a social, economic, educational, environmental and policy nature.

DELTA Model

The Riddet Institute developed the DELTA Model to be able to answer food system questions on a global scale. But we can also analyse the availability of nutrients to the New Zealand population (Smith et al., 2021; Sustainable Nutrition Initiative, 2021). This model analyses food production, export and imports, with consideration of non-food uses of products, waste and inedible portions. The remaining food available for consumption is converted into nutrients available for consumption, and bioavailability adjustments are made for protein and the indispensable amino acids. For this article, the quantities of available nutrients were compared to the nutrient requirements of the New Zealand population, using demographic information on the age and gender structure of the whole population and nutrient intake targets for each group, as these vary across their lifetime. This allowed us to compare nutrient availability with national requirements, extending the work of Rush and Obolonkin (2020) to individual nutrient dynamics. The results are presented in Table 1 and Figure 1 on a per capita per day basis, for ease of interpretation. (These are available in the full article.)

Surprising results

The data may be surprising: how could a country that produces so much meat, dairy and fruit have deficient availability of iron, calcium and vitamin C? Firstly, note that the DELTA Model predictions do have limitations. They use balance sheet data, which capture the overall production and trade dynamics of recorded food. This will not perfectly represent the large amount of homegrown, hunted and fished food that we eat in New Zealand. The data is also at a national average level: the amount available and consumed by individuals should be expected to vary widely, as shown by our national nutrition survey data (University of Otago and Ministry of Health, 2011). However, the results are indicative of national nutrient availability.

Globally, the DELTA Model finds that calcium and Vitamin E availability do not meet whole-world-population requirements (Smith et al., 2021). This is also the case in New Zealand, and the gaps are around the same size. Dairy is a major source of calcium globally, but our consumption of dairy is less than that of many parts of the world, especially Europe. Vitamin E is sourced predominantly from plants, most densely found in plant oils. The availability of this nutrient in New Zealand is lower than the global average and we produce less of it than we need, making us reliant on food imports for this nutrient. The other nutrients that appear clearly deficient in New Zealand are fibre, potassium and Vitamin B9 (folate). A number of other nutrients are very close to requirement (+/- 10%): carbohydrate, iron, magnesium, zinc, Vitamin A and Vitamin C. We produce and export in excess of our own requirements of all of these except for fibre, carbohydrate and Vitamin E.

Our nutrient imports are far smaller than our exports: between 10% and 92% or our requirement, depending on the nutrient. These dynamics are relatively unique: there are few countries in our analysis that produce and export so much nutrition, whilst importing comparatively little. A closer examination of some of the individual nutrients of interest yields interesting results. Our carbohydrate production is about 60% dairy and 40% plant (largely fruit). Thus, this does not match our carbohydrate consumption (largely grains). This explains the relatively high trade rates of carbohydrate seen here.

We consume only a third of the meat iron that we produce and our dietary iron intake is dominated by plant sources, most of which we import. The same trend is true for zinc, potassium and vitamin B9 (folate). While we produce high quantities of vitamin C, this is almost entirely in a few foods: kiwifruit, apples, and our other major fruit categories. We import very little of this nutrient, largely consuming our own produce. Our calcium production is almost entirely from dairy, as is most of our consumption. However, as a nation, we are not consuming enough. Finally, we do not produce enough fibre in New Zealand to meet our own targets, and of that which we do produce, we export nearly half (again, largely in fruit).

How can this be?

If we produce excesses of many of these nutrients, why do the nutrient gaps exist? The answer is largely that much of the nutrients we produce in New Zealand are in our small number of large export categories: dairy, meat, and fruit. We would not recommend that New Zealand meet its own nutritional needs using exclusively these categories, as this would lead to unbalanced diets. We should not consume all of New Zealand’s iron production, for example, because this would necessitate very high meat consumption. Nor should we consume all our own fruit for vitamin C, as this would come with a high sugar intake. So the answer is not to export less and meet our nutrient requirements with what we currently produce, as this would not make for diverse or healthy diets. Local diets should reflect the New Zealand dietary guidelines (Ministry of Health, 2020). At present, this will necessitate importing a large proportion of our food. To what extent this state of affairs should continue in the future is a worthy topic to debate. There are some New Zealand foods that we should be consuming more of. Our dairy intakes are far lower than those found in Europe, and our domestic calcium consumption and availability is well below where it should be. There are those who argue that retail food prices are too high, and that these prices are driven by our focus on exports. However, if there were more dairy, meat and fruit on the supermarket shelf and at a lower price, would New Zealander’s buy it and eat it? Or would dietary habits trump changes to availability and price in determining what individuals buy and consume? The data presented here do not answer these questions, but they are important questions to address.

There is no straightforward answer

The cost and affordability of nutritious and healthy diets also differs from the cost and affordability of the average New Zealand diet. Kidd et al. (2021) recently found a substantial increase in price between current and healthy household diets in this country. Research at the Riddet Institute has found that many of the food categories that New Zealand produces in high quantities (such as milk and fish) feature in the least cost nutrient adequate diet for the United States, showing they are affordable sources of nutrition there (Chungchunlam et al., 2020). Work is underway to determine whether the same is true for New Zealand consumers. However, nutrient adequacy is low on the list of priorities for most consumers when buying food.

We currently need to import many plant foods that we do not produce much of here, but that are needed for a healthy diet. Following the dietary guidelines, the average diet should be plant-based, optimised with nutrient dense animal foods. A good question, receiving much airtime currently, is whether we ought to produce a more diverse range of foods locally in the future, particularly plant foods. This may allow us to meet our dietary guidelines using a greater proportion of domestic produce.

There is no straightforward answer to this question. How feasible will changes to production be in our local climate and landscape? A sudden shift to more plant food production would certainly reduce our export earnings, which is a major determinant of the country’s wealth. These foods might not be purchased by the typical New Zealand consumer, in favour of less healthy or imported options, and thus go to waste. The environmental impacts of these production systems may not be favourable in certain parts of the country. Policy measures to drive dietary change impacts personal choice for the consumer.

However, the right changes could lead to economic benefits to producers and reduce our dependence on overseas markets. They may increase the healthiness of the New Zealand diet, leading to improved wellbeing of our population and by implication, our health system. The negative environmental impacts of food production in New Zealand might be reduced.

Deciding on changes to the New Zealand food system requires consideration of nutrition, economics, social and environmental factors. These are not easy factors to weigh up against one another. However, there are questions in this space that need answering, backed by scientific evidence.

The Sustainable Nutrition Initiative intends to develop a New Zealand specific version of the DELTA Model that incorporates all these factors, to inform future decision making on the New Zealand food system in the near future. References

REFERENCES

Chungchunlam, S.M.S., Moughan, P.J., Garrick, D.P., and Drewnowski, A. (2020). Animal-sourced foods are required for minimum-cost nutritionally adequate food patterns for the United States. Nature Food 1, 376-381. doi: 10.1038/s43016-020-0096-8 Kidd, B., Mackay, S., Vandevijvere, S., and Swinburn, B. (2021). Cost and greenhouse gas emissions of current, healthy, flexitarian and vegan diets in Aotearoa (New Zealand). BMJ Nutrition. Prevention & Health, bmjnph-2021-000262. doi: 10.1136/bmjnph-2021-000262 Ministry of Health (2020). "Eating and Activity Guidelines for New Zealand Adults: Updated 2020". (Wellington: Ministry of Health). Rush, E., and Obolonkin, V. (2020). Food exports and imports of New Zealand in relation to the food-based dietary guidelines. Eur. J. Clin. Nutr. 74, 307-313. doi: 10.1038/s41430-019-0557-z Smith, N.W., Fletcher, A.J., Dave, L.A., Hill, J.P., and Mcnabb, W.C. (2021). Use of the DELTA Model to Understand the Food System and Global Nutrition. The Journal of Nutrition. doi: 10.1093/jn/nxab199 Sustainable Nutrition Initiative (2021). Available: www. sustainablenutritioninitiative.com [Accessed 12 May 2021]. University of Otago and Ministry of Health (2011). "A Focus on Nutrition: Key findings of the 2008/09 New Zealand Adult Nutrition Survey". (Wellington: Ministry of Health).