The Covid food fright
How do we brace the supply chain for the next big shock?
Covid-19 created the biggest stress test of New Zealand’s food supply in generations.
The pandemic exposed weak points in our supply chain, with shortages of staple products such as flour and lettuce due to issues like panic buying and lack of packaging. Nearly a quarter of Kiwis needed help feeding themselves and their families, many experiencing food insecurity for the first time after losing their jobs or taking pay cuts due to economic disruption.
Eketa¯huna-based agriculture expert, and founder of the AgriWomen’s Development Trust, Lindy Nelson, said there were urgent lessons to be learned.
‘‘Covid has been a wake-up call but it is nothing compared with the challenges we will face over the next 20-30 years with, for instance, extreme weather events and climate change,’’ she said.
A Cabinet document obtained by One News in August revealed the Government estimated the number of Kiwis struggling to afford food had doubled to 1 million over 2020. At that point, the Ministry of Social Development was issuing more than 4000 emergency food grants a day.
Foodbanks faced a massive increase in demand for food parcels, with the fallout of the pandemic continuing through Christmas.
Nelson said building a more resilient food chain meant reconsidering our relationship with food. ‘‘We must find solutions and new ways of being in the world, so that new structures evolve which meet the needs of our planet and its people.’’ One option, Nelson suggested, was further decentralising food distribution with more regional hubs and warehousing. Nelson said community groups could be supported to produce and distribute food, on a workshare or volunteer basis, to make sure everyone gets the basics.
Community gardens that sprang up in American cities in the wake of the 2008 global financial crisis were an excellent example of that, she said.
Ian Proudfoot, global head of agri-business for consultancy firm KPMG, said the world would be dealing with Covid outbreaks and disruptions for years to come.
He said the pandemic should be a catalyst for systematic change, with a first priority of making sure New Zealand can provide every Kiwi with good access to healthy, nutritious and culturally appropriate meals.
Proudfoot said part of the reason foodbanks and the Government struggled to cope during the pandemic was because there were already 500,000 Kiwis who required food assistance before 2020 began. ‘‘[That is] the immediate challenge we are facing – once people become food insecure, you don’t really see the numbers step back down without intervention.’’ Proudfoot said New Zealand was unique in that while it was a food producer, it also had some of the worst health outcomes of any developed nation.
He said many Kiwis were living with potentially fatal diseases such as obesity and diabetes not because of poor self-discipline or lack of thought, but because of a lack of good choices. The worstaffected communities were not in remote locations but often in the hearts of major cities.
‘‘These New Zealanders are our neighbours, yet we as senior leaders are often blind to these deserts because we have the ability to make choices,’’ he said.
Proudfoot said conversations about food supply had tended to focus on producing enough food and how to transport it.
But when flour disappeared from supermarket shelves it was not because New Zealand ran out of flour – it was because suppliers ran out of packaging, and were scrambling to make enough to keep up with the spike in demand for 1kg and 2kg bags of flour.
Proudfoot said piecemeal efforts were the problem.
‘‘Work is being done by our health system, by iwi, hapu¯ and other community groups, by our science sector, not-for-profits,
‘‘Supply of shelf-stable and refrigerated goods was largely unaffected.’’ Ruth Fairhall Ministry for Primary Industries
NGOs and by individual growers and their suppliers ... There are more than 30 government agencies that are involved in the food supply system.
‘‘We are having the right conversations [but] they are siloed. We need to break down the barriers between different organisations [and issues] to look at the problem as a whole.’’
Proudfoot said there had long been a push to do that with a national food strategy but after Covid-19 struck, the voices calling for one have increased exponentially. He was involved in a resulting effort to develop such a strategy through The Aotearoa Circle, a partnership of government ministries and more than 40 private organisations.
The Aotearoa Circle national food strategy project chairwoman Rangimarie Hunia said a lot of key decisions were still to be made. The project began in November, gathering evidence
and looking at different organisational and economic models that could be applied to the national supply chain.
By the end of February the Circle aims to create a fact pack, outlining the current state of New Zealand’s supply chain with key insights from other countries’ food strategies.
The next phase will see the Circle draft a comprehensive national food strategy that will be delivered with a set of recommendations to government ministers and private sector partners.
Ministry for Primary Industries assistant deputy directorgeneral Ruth Fairhall said New Zealand had long enjoyed a net food surplus, thanks to a combination of natural resources and innovation. This put the country in a relatively strong position to weather the pandemic’s disruption of national and international trade and supply chains.
‘‘The food industry was able to ensure the continued supply of food to New Zealanders and continue exports to international markets for the large majority of our food products,’’ Fairhall said.
‘‘Supply of shelf-stable and refrigerated goods was largely unaffected, with temporary exceptions such as flour in small packaging units.’’
Fairhall said an intergovernmental group, led by the Ministry of Transport, was set up to keep tabs on the pandemic’s ongoing disruption around the world and to assess how the Government could help fix the supply chain issues that Covid-19 exposed.
‘‘As part of this [the Government] is working to assist Ports of
Auckland with work visas and immigration processes to fill the shortages of skilled labour at the port, which is a key pinch point,’’ Fairhall said.
‘‘More broadly, the Ministry for Primary Industries works in many areas that support food security, including improving sector productivity, ensuring the food we produce is safe, increasing sustainable resource use and protecting New Zealand from biological risks.’’
As an immediate response to the Covid-19 disruptions, the Ministry of Social Development was also funnelling $32 million of support to foodbanks, food rescue and other community organisations over the next two years through the Food Secure Communities scheme.