by frog
Sue Kedgley spoke at the Farmers Market Biennial Conference yesterday on Peak Food:
We are in danger of becoming a cash crop nation –producing dairy and to a lesser extent meat for export –while other sectors are being eroded by cheap imports. We import 2.8 million tonnes of food each year — bananas from Equador, garlic from China, wheat from Australia–and our imports are growing every year.
In the 1980’s before we removed subsidies, New Zealand was self sufficient in wheat. But now we import 75% of the wheat we eat, which makes us vulnerable to skyrocketing wheat prices.
Ironically, even as international grain prices are soaring, our grain growers are struggling to keep ahead. Our five main grain mills are owned by global agribusinesses which set the price of wheat –and pay New Zealand growers substantially less than they pay for imported wheat.
Wheat growers in New Zealand, as elsewhere, are being hit by rising fertiliser, seed, and pesticide costs, driven up by the rising price of oil; and as a result many are converting to growing wheat for animal feed which gets higher returns, or to dairying.
The same thing is happening in other parts of our food industry. Sheep farmers find themselves squeezed by low prices and high costs. Our once flourishing garlic industry has been decimated by cheap garlic from China and now there are only 3-4 left in Marlborough, and they are struggling. We import 45% of the pork we consume, and our pig farmers are struggling. We import so much cheap canned fruit and jam that very little of that is made in New Zealand anymore, and on it goes. And then we have the absurd situation where Talleys is gutting some species of fish at its local factory, then exporting them to China for re-processing, and then returning them to New Zealand for sale.
And even in the one industry where we do dominate world markets –our dairy industry—prices for dairy products are exorbitant and beyond the reach of many New Zealanders because Fonterra claims we have to pay prices that are set globally –presumably by global commodity traders and speculators –for food that is produced down the road.
She continues to note that our Minister of Agriculture recently suggested “We need a food security strategy as much as we need to prepare for the Martians landing?.
The beauty of focussing on local community initiatives like farmers markets, is that it’s something we can do now, starting tomorrow. We don’t need to wait for the Martians to land before the government will act. The exciting thing is that its already starting to happen, as this conference demonstrates, and we are starting to see a grassroots movement for change, for greater resilience, for more community action, all around New Zealand.
It is below the radar – the media haven’t picked it up yet – but I see it happening all over New Zealand. And the Green Party wants to do everything we can to support this movement, for what could be more important for sustaining present and future generations than providing good food in a manner that sustains not only consumers and producers but also the planet itself.
Published in Campaign | Economy, Work, & Welfare | Environment & Resource Management by frog on Sat, May 31st, 2008
Tags: bananas, dairy, farmers' markets, Food, garlic, Jim Anderton, martians, pork, Sue Kedgley, wheat
on the trolls and those who are unable to keep on topic
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When I was a child in the 1940s and 50s our family grew all our own vegetables and fruit and kept hens for eggs. We went fishing regularly, and gathered shellfish. Our parents bottled fruit and made jam, some neighbours kept bees for honey … we cut up our own surplus tree growth for firewood and we swapped what we didn’t need for what we didn’t have with neighbours. All this was a regular part of the working (and recreational) week, and took place in all city suburbs.
Now a lot of the hours in the day that were formerly spent in such pursuits are spent on the internet or watching videos/TV or “going out for coffee” etc … and (the saddest two:) wandering around shopping malls for “recreation” or driving to the expensive “Gym” to don our lycra exercise gear and replicating the muscle movements of this formerly productive human lifestyle on exercise machines!
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and the safe food is a thread the greens should be going gangbusters on between now and the election..
it is a platform that is trans-ideological…
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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Who would do the work so Phil can sit around doing nothing all day?
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Of course, it is in the name of “self-sufficiency” that the likes of the European Union, the United States and Australia have had some really stupid policies. Consider Australia; so they could be self-sufficient in rice and cotton, they encouraged farmers to grow it; of course, let us not forget that both crops need a lot of water, and of course, Australia is dry at the best of times. Take the cotton and rice away, and I don’t think that Australians would be facing as heavy water restrictions as they have been in recent years.
About the United States and European Union, need I say more – their agricultural subsidies are screwing over the Third World and helping to keep Africa in poverty. It is in the name of “self-sufficiency” that the European Union has become the second largest producer of sugar in the world (they even grow sugar cane in Finland, no doubt using electricity to warm up the crops; even more waste).
I would much rather let the market decide prices, and leave the policy of auturky in the past where it belongs. You never know, you may actually help bring people in the Third World out of poverty, and have far less waste of resources. Of course, if people want to have their farmers markets and use them, I have no problem.
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Me? Still getting tomatoes off the vine in Christchurch thanks to the clear plastic covers supplied free with every pallet of salt from Grassmere.
Has anybody had personal experience of making a hotbed?
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There will be a generation of kiwis grow up without knowing what a REAL apricot is supposed to taste like – i used to love Roxburgh apricots in the tin when i was a kid but you can’t get them any more. gotta love this progress !
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“Does anyone remember how expensive chicken used to be back in the good ole days?”
I do! and YES “chicken” was relatively more expensive than now.
There are two major factors to consider, however:
(1) The the LIVES of the hens of that time were more like those of today’s “organic” hens (or, at the least, of todays’ “free range” hens).
(2)This is unlike the lives of the majority of today’s hens, which are generally kept in crowded, inhumane cages, or at least in “barns” with artificial light, where they are fed formula food made from left over waste (sometimes including meat from their own species.) etc … (and I won’t even start about growth hormones …)
Between “then” and “now”, many factors, including price, are no longer comparable.
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(small consolations for what we all face..
but..y’know..!..)
phil(whoar.co.nz)
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If you want to protect local industry (or agriculture).
There are only realistically three ways to do it -subsidies,tarriffs or quotas
And the price is at least partially in starving Africans
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The so called “absurdities” are of course so to someone not actually in the business. There is nothing wrong with exporting large quantities of something efficient that you produce and reaping the benefits of it, while buying cheaper imports instead of paying more to produce something locally. The economic arguments of autarky have been disproved so much you have to wonder why this nonsense is trotted out again and again? This “we import” nonsense as if it is some collective decision. What does she want done?
Sue Kedgley is going to a world conference on food security to essentially argue on the side of the EU, US and Japanese protectionists (few note the Bush Administration has actually been pushing to abolish agricultural export subsidies but the EU isn’t interested) in arguing against free trade in agriculture. At best it is inane and stupid, at worst she is advocating that the economic vandalism of the EU CAP continues, damaging the NZ economy and the economy of dozens of developing countries.
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Naturally everybody wants ready access to food, and we ought to be collectively ashamed if anybody lacks that. I cannot accept, however, that as members of the richest fifth of the world´s population it is moral to withdraw to fortress NZ. Trade exposes us to the follies of ´the system´, but if we find them hard to swallow then how can we abandon the fight to those more poorly placed than ourselves?
If our dairy has outstretched the country´s sustainable capacity, or we have allowed a monopoly to develop, then we should address that. We should insist that all goods and services provided in this country, including imports, have paid for their GHG emissions according to acceptable international standards. This will provide a market for overseas companies who desire to lead the way in their region by costing in their emissions. And NZ will bear that cost as the consumers, even as we may be choosing to subsidise (transparently, and hopefully only partially) our exports to markets which disregard their environment. That would be good global citizenship.
Looking into the future, NZ can expect to be wealthy in fresh water as global warming sets in. Will we play Scrooge McDuck, swimming in the wealth of our Turkish bathhouses? Or will we grow ´cash crops´ which the world needs but lacks the water to grow?
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The local land owners were mostly dispossessed and moved to the cities, providing cheap labour; a few were employed in the pineapple factories; all lost their inherent skills at growing rice and tending their small holdings. Ultimately the pineapple market found new price levels (crashed) as the same advisors went around the world establishing more pineapple empires to compete and Philippines became net importers of rice for many years.
The same story can be repeated about so many “developing countries?.
It suddenly occurs to me that the dairy boom in NZ is taking us down a similar track. Incredibly the large dairy farms are using cheap Philippine labour to keep their costs down; our own young are destined to move off the land, losing their food production skills.
New Zealand’s dependence on imported food, associated with a crash in dairy prices, is a frightening thought for our future.
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So much for the market delivering wealth to people in developing countries – the rich world agricultural subsidies are problematic in lots of ways, but aren’t the cause of starvation in Africa.
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Africa’s poverty is predominantly generated by corrupt government that fails to protect property rights and contracts, and engages in enormous graft to protect businesses run and owned by state cronies. One of the bigger problems is infrastructure or import monopolies which hinder capital development and investment. The biggest single difference between Africa and the rest of the world is chronically bad governance. That requires introspection that parts of Asia and parts of Latin America (notably Chile, Uruguay and Argentina) have had. The simple point is that aid wont fix Africa, it’s government that people can’t buy favours from to deny others the right to trade and control their own property.
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I recently witnessed the small holdings proliferated around the “White Highlands” in Kenya. I could not help feeling that these so called inefficient land holdings were ultimately better for Africa and the world than the large farms and corporate efficiencies they have replaced. Even if the owners have not got wealth, they have food and the resources to produce it. Obviously the changes wrought will cause some fairly massive disruptions including the effects of drought etc, but minor compared to the social disruption caused by the introduction and subsequent failure of corporate farming. We should take note in NZ.
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Its a little unfair to claim that bad governance and corruption are responsible for the lack of development in Africa, when its indemic in all countries, whether developed or Third World nations. Only in the West its merely considered part of the political system. Pork barrel politics, political machines, and the “revolving door” phenomon. It doesn’t have a perceivable negative effect on their economies only because of the maturity of their capital markets and social/governance/economic institutions. Well it does, but most are oblivious to it.
Nor is it to claim that development came about, because governments respected “property rights”. You could hardly argue that the colonials in South Africa, South East Asia, the Americas, or Australasia, protected the property rights of the indigenous peoples, but those areas still managed to develop anyway. It can be argued to the contrary, that those regions developed precisely, because they didn’t.
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Property rights only apply to the conqueror, who ignores such things during the conquering.
My concern is that the development of NZ is still going on and in time, the production specialisation of narrow ranges of primary production will lead the country into a state of paying for imported food against falling dairy prices, whilst waiting for the next primary product boom to pay the bills – all the while squandering our natural resources.
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Yes theres many problems in Western societies, but seeing the violence, suffering, and poverty thats indemic in the Third World I’d honestly prefer to live here.
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Despite viewing this from a position of comfort and privilege, I fear that much of what we value forms part of a mirage established by those who will profit from our holding ‘drinking water, affordable healthcare, economic security, freedom of expression, legal protections, and freedom of opportunity’ as inalienable rights. Whereas the “others” wonder what all the fuss is about and enjoy their simple life style and the patterns of living including birth and death and all the hardships and pleasures in between.
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Not so sure that “the West” offers affordable healthcare and economic security these days, nor freedom of opportunity (whatever that is). Legal protections work reasonably well on the “preventing both rich and poor from stealing bread and sleeping under bridges” and the “I stole this land fair and square and I’ve got guns” principles.
Clean water I’ll give you (in general) and freedom of expression seems only mildly under threat, as long as you’re happy with the richest having the loudest voices.
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Like I alluded to in my previous comments, life in the West isn’t perfect, but in alot of ways its far superior than that experienced in alot of the Third World.
No death squads, no being “disappeared”, not having to scrape a living from the rubbish dump, not having to die early because unavailable medicine, etc.
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“Don’t think death squads, disappearances and scraping a living from rubbish dumps are particularly normal occurences in developing countries.”
Are you kidding me? Death squads have been known to terrorise most Third World countries in the Third World in modern times. Routinely used to murder or kidnap and torture street children, drug users, indigenous and labour groups, and political dissidents.
Argentina, Algeria, Bolivia, Brazil, Cambodia, Chile, China, Colombia, Cuba, Dominican Republic, East Timor, El Salvador,Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq, Ireland, Ivory Coast, South Korea,
Lebanon, Mexico, Nicaragua, Panama, Peru, Philippines, Russia, Thailand, Uruguay, United Kingdom, Yugoslavia, Venezuela, and Vietnam have all suffered from the ravages of death squads and people who oppose the governements have routinely been “disappeared” by governement agents in recent times.
Wilbur
Medical expectation are the residues of the conquerers. Are you kidding me? Why should millions of children die from easily preventable illnesses such as malaria or even hunger? I hope you’re not alluding to the belief that they shouldn’t be able to expect to live through to adulthood with that question, because that is completely callous and uncaring. Not something I’d expect from a supposed Green.
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Doh! I thought I’d deleted them. Copied the list from Wikipedia.
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Interesting posts. I think I like your thinking.
SleepyTH-
“Why should millions of children die from easily preventable illnesses such as malaria or even hunger?” Kids die from hunger if they don’t have enough food. If there continues to be more and more kids, and not more and more food, then more and more kids will die from hunger.
I don’t know much about malaria, but it’s good to hear that’s it’s “easily preventable”. A friend of mine had to take doxycycline for 8 weeks (!) as a preventative when he visited the Phillipines for just a few days. I have heard that the best way to cost effectively prevent malaria deaths was to use DDT around villages. Is this how to easily prevent malaria deaths?
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Precisely why its preferable to live in the developed world. Because even our poorest should have access to food and affordable healthcare.
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In regard to where best to live, my concern is that our satisfaction in living where and how we do may become short-lived and the fall from grace may be devastating to us due to our loss of food producing skills and associated dependence on imports of so much that we presently depend on, including our medical expectations.
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I notice the “should”. But aren’t you just arguing that it’s better to be upper class or middle class rather than lower class? People in developing countries are part of as global economic system and happen to be the current losers in that system – they aren’t in a different system.
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“But aren’t you just arguing that it’s better to be upper class or middle class rather than lower class? People in developing countries are part of as global economic system and happen to be the current losers in that system – they aren’t in a different system.”
Not really, because even middle and upper class people don’t have the legal protections that even the poorest here does, not to mention that our govenments are accountable to the people so no kidnappings or summary executions here, well unless you’re a Muslim.
Theres noone to speak or campaign for your civil liberties in Third World Countries.
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