Missed opportunities for NZ agri-food sector

Monday, November 21, 2016
Missed opportunities for NZ agri-food sector

More than four years after an independent report on the future of New Zealand’s agri-food sector, the sentiment remains the same – the future is here, and urgent action is needed.

The report ‘A Call to Arms’, from the Riddet Institute Agri-Food Thought Leadership Team, looked at the sector’s performance and potential, and consulted a wide range of key personnel to prepare a strategy focusing on research, development and capability. The resulting strategy focuses on options for sector leaders to work together, and why industry should lead the strategy implementation work.

The opportunities outlined in the 2012 strategy document are backed by recent comments from Ian Proudfoot, KPMG’s global head of agribusiness. In the company’s latest Agribusiness Agenda, Mr Proudfoot issued a challenge to the New Zealand agri-sector, to capture its “missing share” of a quarter of a trillion dollars.

The agenda states that New Zealand exported $37 billion in agri-food products in 2015, but KPMG estimates those same products ultimately generated more than 0.25 trillion dollars in retail sales when sold to consumers. Mr Proudfoot says the answer to capturing our share is for the sector to forge new pathways to market that close the gap between the producer and the consumer.

Riddet Institute Board Chairman Dr Kevin Marshall led the independent team who wrote the report, and says it was prepared in response to a call by industry senior executives, who challenged the Institute to develop a strategy for science and education-led economic advancement of the New Zealand food industry.

Dr Marshall says it provided a pathway and a proposed mechanism for action that will work, but four years on, more needs to be done.

“There is urgency now, because New Zealand faces a mediocre economic future if we don't drive the major recommendations in this report to fruition.

“Mr Proudfoot identifies that food and beverage exports were $37 billion in 2015 – this is a growth rate no better than business-as-usual and will not achieve the Business Growth Agenda target of $60 billion by 2025. Strong practical, strategic leadership is required if we are to achieve this target. In particular, we need strategic thinking on long-term research and capability building and a willingness to take some risks. Mr Proudfoot is to be congratulated in keeping these matters to the forefront,” Dr Marshall says.

Riddet Institute co-director Distinguished Professor Paul Moughan says New Zealand has unrealised potential in agri-food. “Until all key parts of the sector work together in a planned way, New Zealand's economic growth will be not be maximised. Now is the time for action. This is not just another strategy, it’s a blueprint for action, but we are in danger of being left behind.

“There remains a golden opportunity for New Zealand to bring ‘high tech’ to the agriculture and food sectors, combined with innovative marketing and by exploiting new means of market access,” Professor Moughan says.

The Riddet Institute, hosted by Massey University, is a national Centre of Research Excellence, and focuses on four key aspects of science: food material science, novel food processing, human nutrition, and gastrointestinal biology. The centre’s goal is to play a pivotal role in developing future foods that meet the nutritional needs of the world and at the same time boost the value of New Zealand’s food exports.

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