The case for feeding our 5 million first, before first tonne is exported

New Zealand needs to develop a food strategy that looks at how to balance the needs of the local community with the wealth that is generated from export revenue, according to KPMG’s global head of agribusiness Ian Proudfoot.
He says New Zealand is unique among OECD countries in generating the bulk of its traded wealth from food, so it’s surprising we don’t have a food strategy like most of those other countries.
Proudfoot, who is a partner with KPMG in Auckland, has been giving the matter a lot of thought since he had a heart attack in 2017. 
He ended up in Auckland Hospital for open heart surgery, after which he was given a lot of lifestyle advice, including about the healthy food he should eat. 
That was easy for someone like him with financial resources, but not for everyone in the ward, which got him thinking how that could be in a country that produced so much food.
He highlighted his concern at KPMG’s flagship Agribusiness Agenda in 2019. 
Under the heading “Feeding our community before we feed the world”, the report called on the sector to ensure that every Kiwi had access to the food they need to sustainably improve health outcomes before the first tonne is exported.
“We have probably around about a million people, about 20 percent of our population, that are unable to access sufficient affordable, nutritious food on a regular basis, which for a country that produces enough food to feed 40 million people, is a real failing in our system,” Proudfoot says.
“That became very clear to us during the pandemic. It became visually obvious, as we saw people queuing up to get food support. The weaknesses and the inherent insecurities in our food system started to show.”
He says a comprehensive food strategy should look in a holistic way at all aspects of how food shapes our society, including cost, availability, societal health, cultural significance and economic benefits from exporting.
“We’ve got to recognise that we need to export food and we need to earn money from it, because that’s how we pay for our schools, our roads, our hospitals, the things that are important to us,” he says.
“What I’ve talked about since 2019 is feeding our 5 million first before we think about exporting.
“I think we’ve felt that the answer to food security has been through effectively putting sticking plasters on by funding food resilience networks and food banks and other activities.
“That has an immediate and necessary impact, but it’s not the solution to food insecurity in our society. 
“The solution has to be about, how do we enable people to access sufficient nutritious food at the price point they can afford, and do that with mana, because the way to destroy a person’s mana is to require them to receive food support – if you can’t support your own family, there is nothing worse in terms of impacting and bringing somebody down.” 
Proudfoot wants to see different business models evolve, such as farmers selling some of their products at a domestic price rather than the export price, which would still allow them to make money while supporting a resilient food system in New Zealand.
“It’s not the obligation of our farmers to fund food security for New Zealand. That’s not their role,” he says. “But they do have a role to play in thinking about how their business model optimises its value, and I believe part of that is playing a role in ensuring food security in our society.”
He says a resilient food system also needs to ensure farmers are resilient so they can keep farming, invest in growing nutritionally diverse products and are rewarded for the management and stewardship of nature so we stop putting so much pressure on the boundary of the planet.
Proudfoot says not having a national food strategy could ultimately risk our export markets.
“My concern is, if we don’t have a holistic view of our food system, then people will start to put two and two together, so they’ll look at our environmental outcomes, and they’ll look at our health outcomes, and they’ll go well, but you’re telling me you’re selling me a nutritious, healthy, sustainable product … that doesn’t stack up with the information I can see coming out of New Zealand as a country, and as a consequence, they’ll make a decision not to buy our product.
“We need to line the factual background up with the story that we tell, the emotional story, and that means we’ve got to have a better overview and perspective of what our food system actually is.
“We need to make sure that Brand New Zealand, in terms of food, is a robust data-based brand backed by a very clear strategy.”
Proudfoot would like to see the subject moved up the Government’s priority agenda, but that doesn’t appear likely soon. 
Earlier this year, the Public Health Advisory Committee, an expert advisory committee established under the Pae Ora (Healthy Futures) Act 2022, released its first report titled “Rebalancing our food system”, which covered similar themes. 
The report says in our current system, food is an economic commodity grown primarily for export.
“Our food system requires rebalancing to ensure that alongside meeting economic goals it also supports the health and wellbeing of all New Zealanders,” the report says.
Among its recommendations was that the health minister works to establish a cross-government entity and/or ministerial responsibility for food and food security which has overall accountability for the food system meeting the goals of a National Food Strategy and covers health, social, primary industries, environment, education and trade, and ensures all cross-government policy considers the impact on food systems.
A spokesperson from Health Minister Shane Reti’s office said pursuing the report’s recommendations was not a current priority for the Government. 
“There are far more pressing issues in the health sector that need addressing at the moment,” they said.