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Deputy President’s Word: Team Food and Fibre sector
Team Food and Fibre sector
By Bernadine Guilleux : HortNZ deputy president
Tēnā Koutou Katoa
Barry asked me to put a few words together for this month’s magazine. My immediate thought was the world is a busy place, and a noisy one at that. Who am I to add to the clutter?
That said, my personal approach is to gather and listen to as many views as I can, so that I am better placed to formulate an understanding of the world around me. Basic facts homework for anyone wishing to participate effectively within an advocacy organisation such as Horticulture New Zealand.
I recently had the unique opportunity to listen and gather as part of Te Hono Aotearoa, held in Waitangi, Kerikeri, in late June.
Te Hono is a partnership event between the leaders of New Zealand’s food and fibre sector companies, iwi and government agencies. Conceived in 2012 by a New Zealander, Te Hono was devised to build the foundations of a winning team – shared vision, knowledge, and connections. This team was then the New Zealand primary sector, now known as the Food and Fibre sector. New Zealand Trade & Enterprise (NZTE), the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI), KPMG and the ASB Bank felt, and still feel so far, that it is an initiative worth supporting. Despite that, there are varied views on the legitimacy and worthiness of such an event, who attends, and why a humble sector like New Zealand’s land-based industries should be pretentious enough to think this was a good idea in the first place. Te Hono in te reo means to connect. It comes from a broader concept of Hono Tangata, Hono ki te ao. The English translation of this is strengthening relationships by linking to the land and connecting to the world. The purpose of Te Hono is to offer the shared experience of world-class thinking in a condensed, future-focused environment. As with anything, what you do with your knowledge and experience is a democratic choice.
The world is moving at speed through unprecedented change and the virtual world is so much more real than we like to imagine. Many seem to believe that resisting change is the solution, that if we shout loud enough then the tsunami will stop, or that it will be smaller than all the scaremongers say it is going to be. From a pragmatic viewpoint one can agree, but ultimately plan to get to the top of the hill just in case. If the tsunami of change ends up being a small tidal wave well great, at least we took the kids up the hill and enjoyed the trip. Norman Borlaug was the brain behind the industrialised agriculture that we see on Netflix. His motivation to develop a strain of maize that could be grown in the impoverished countryside of Mexico was born from the emotion he felt seeing starvation firsthand. Today, there are people with the same motivation working on Food-as-Software that will also revolutionise food supply as we know it, providing the human population with adequate nutrition.
What is different today from when Borlaug was developing his maize is that there are simply more people on the planet, and a less stable natural environment. What is
the same now as it was back then, is that humans look to technology to answer big challenges. The European Union has recently declared a review of their stance on geneediting (CrispR technology) after a European Commission report release stated such tools will help support agricultural sustainability. The EU recognises that to make such a position change, they will need extensive public consultation – lengthy and robust at that. Some food scientists will say that regenerative agriculture is simply ‘shining the horse and cart’ whilst precision fermentation firmly takes over food production as we know it, and right underneath our noses. As a marketer trained in social sciences, I would suggest that New Zealand has the type of global reputation to underpin a winning play at artisanal agriculture. Ultimately this is a food production system not to feed the masses, but to provide product options that consumers can select to help stabilise the planet’s natural environment and be rewarded with a feel-good outcome. Tagged as ‘regenerative’, New Zealand can define what this means in our context. Whether one agrees with environmental regulation or not, marketers will say that if our country has high minimum standards, this helps us sell our basic products at a price that gives us the quality of life we wish for our country. In summary, unless New Zealand agriculture is a net positive contributor to our natural environment, then its right to play becomes a whole lot harder to justify. This could be a complicated way of saying so let’s just get on with addressing climate change and accept the publicprivate partnership offered that will help equip our organisations to ride the global tide towards new supply chains. It is as simple – and as complex – as that. This year, Te Hono saw a new generation of food producers come together by inviting a group from Future Food Aotearoa – a movement representing entrepreneurs who see food tech as New Zealand’s future. How to convince the sturdy and humble backbone of New Zealand’s economy that their future is an Avatar of what they know. The point that United States academics shared at Te Hono is that New Zealand can continue being humble, so long as we make sure we are acting for the good for the planet. Another point made was to diversify risk by climbing the chain into higher valued, processed versions of current production. Global consumer research tells us that younger generations are consuming less and less raw fruit and vegetables and are not particularly interested in cooking. Therefore, our opportunity to reach consumers will be twofold – intermittently into their stomachs through the strength of our commodity supply relationships, but also into their hearts and minds through the high-value consumer products we dream up.
Kioto®
apricots
Orion®
nectarines
