10. SUE KEDGLEY (Green) Link to this
to the Minister of Civil Defence
Can he confirm that the only food security strategy the Government has is to ensure that the National Crisis Management Centre, set up under the Beehive, has a cafeteria that can cater for up to 100 people at a time, and carries basic emergency food supplies?
Hon JIM ANDERTON (Minister of Agriculture) Link to this
I can confirm that the Labour-Progressive Government does not have a food security strategy because New Zealand is a nation that produces many times more the quantity of food that is required to sustain our own domestic needs, and there is, therefore, demonstrably no food security risk for New Zealand. I actually thought there was an obesity problem. However, the Ministry of Civil Defence and Emergency Management has a work programme under way to provide support and coordination for the food sector in maintaining essential food supplies to communities during emergencies.
Who are the lucky 100 who will be catered for in the Beehive bunker; and how high do food prices need to go before the Minister’s Government thinks it is worth developing a food security strategy to ensure that all New Zealanders have access to healthy, affordable food, even if food prices continue to escalate and there are global food shortages?
I do not think that providing food for 100 people in the bunker in an emergency would risk the food supply to the rest of New Zealand, and I do not think it would be helped if we started growing rice in Southland.
Darien FentonYes, I have. Last week I saw a press release from the Green Party that stated: “New Zealand urgently needs a food security strategy, to put in place mechanisms to ensure we have sufficient food to survive interruptions in basic food commodities like wheat, corn, and rice,”. Last year New Zealand’s wheat crop was the largest since 1976, at more than 340,000 tonnes, which is over 80 kilograms for every person in the country. Sweetcorn production has been steadily climbing in recent years and is currently around 97,000 tonnes per annum, or 20 kilograms per person, of which about 25 percent is exported. New Zealand does not produce rice, for obvious climatic reasons. To suggest there is even the remotest risk that New Zealand could face food shortages is simply not credible.
Does the Minister agree that food security is about more than how much food we grow in New Zealand, and that it is also about whether low-income families can afford to put healthy meals on the table; and why does his Government not have a strategy to protect all New Zealanders from escalating world food prices, not just the 100 people with a place in the Beehive bunker?
I just pointed out to the member that more of the food items she quoted in her press release are being produced in New Zealand than at practically any other time in our history. The last thing in the world we are likely to prevent food shortages by doing is growing rice.
Can the Minister confirm that we imported 29,000 tonnes of cereals in 2006 and 2007 alone, and that food security, no matter how much food we may grow—such as Fonterra with its dairy products—is a matter of affordability; and can we expect to see strategies in the coming Budget to ensure that all Kiwi kids can get access to healthy food even as prices escalate, such as, perhaps, through the roll-out of a free fruit programme in schools so that every New Zealand child is guaranteed at least some fresh fruit every day, and other initiatives to make food more affordable for New Zealanders?
Madam SPEAKERI just note that this question is straying a long way from ministerial responsibility for civil defence. But perhaps the Minister would like to address it as it relates to that narrow issue.
In terms of New Zealand’s security, it is critical for us to be able to trade with the rest of the world. We import some cereals from around the world, but I have to remind the member that almost 90-95 percent of all of our agriculture production is exported to the rest of the world. If that did not happen, we would end up eating possums and the people in Greenland would end up eating polar bears. I do not think that the Green Party would be in favour of that, either.