INTEREST
Home grown challenge for NZ food supply This has taken annualised food price increase to 6%, the biggest annual increase since 2011. Significantly, in the past ten years, or 120 months, Statistics NZ has only reported 20 months where food prices fell. Rush says the lift in prices is not entirely unexpected as the world grapples with high rates of inflation, a tightening of food supplies globally in part, due to climate change and now a war waging in Ukraine. Rush says food insecurity is now a real issue in this land of plenty, where some households may pass days without any food in the house. But she also points to deeper issues including a lack of transport to access a supermarket, lack of education in how to properly prepare quality food, and insufficient time in households where often adults may hold down multiple jobs each to meet the bills. And the irony that the country producing some of the healthiest food on the planet has the third highest obesity rate in the OECD is not lost on her. “New Zealand produces a surfeit of food, more than enough for food sovereignty and selfsufficiency but we import feed for animals, most of our cereal and grain crops, and do not produce enough green leafy vegetables or legumes to enable New Zealand people to eat well locally.” Earlier work by Rush has determined the oftenmade claim New Zealand can feed 40 million people is largely true.
For generations New Zealand has prided itself on its ability to feed other countries’ citizens. From being the colonial farm supplying fat lamb carcasses and bulk butter to Mother England after World War II, to marketing SunGold kiwifruit and Sauvignon Blanc to Shanghai, millions have devoured the efforts of our primary sector. WORDS BY RICHARD RENNIE, IMAGES BY ANNIE STUDHOLME AND LANEY MAHUIKA-WILLIS
Over that time Kiwis have also tended to take it for granted that much of the food we have sold offshore is also available to us here at home. A generation ago, a “grow your own” culture supported that, with every house being on a quarter acre with a vegie garden and maybe a fruit tree. Today town houses are only required a metre each side and minimal yard space, often
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concreted over, and the loss of land to grow food on has been accompanied by a loss of knowledge on how to do so. In the past months, the ability of New Zealanders to access and afford quality fresh food has been increasingly challenging, to the point the phrase “cost of living crisis” has been interchangeable with “soaring food prices.” Covid’s effects have exacerbated the inequities academics and social workers had identified emerging prior to the pandemic, worsened by the loss of hours worked, entire jobs and businesses. Meantime, the value of the food exported has continued to soar, with the ANZ Commodity Index reaching a historic high late last year as values for all food types, dairy, red meat and horticulture all hit record peaks at the same time. Elaine Rush, Professor of Nutrition at Auckland University of Technology has noted with dismay the surge food prices took in January, up 2.7% in one month alone, with vegetables surging 6%.
In fact, her number crunching has found New Zealand can feed 39 million with dairy products, 11.5 million with red meat, 10 million for fruit and 2 million for vegetables. But work by Rush on how well New Zealand is meeting the nutritional goal of “5-plus a day” has highlighted the imbalances in our domestic food supply, compared to our exported products, and how that imbalance contributes to a deterioration in the nation’s health. Taking the average production of vegetables from 2017 to 2020, her and her colleague Fiona Curran-Cournane determined New Zealand produces 11.7 serves of vegetables per person per day, ostensibly enough to meet dietary targets. However, of this 70% is potatoes, onions, and carrots, of which a third were exported. There was inadequate production of legumes and dark green leafy vegetables, all of which amounted to a mere two thirds of a serving per person per day.
