New Zealand imports "really crappy" highly-processed, high-sugar, poor-nutrient foods and sends really high-quality, nutrient-dense food overseas.
This does not make sense to Emily King when there are people in New Zealand without enough food on their tables, when obesity rates are increasing and the country faces environmental challenges around its food production.
The former environmental lawyer turned food system advocate is on a mission to get people talking about the dilemma and looking for solutions. Solutions which result in healthy food on every table, farmers and food manufacturers getting paid decent money for the work they do and the food they produce and the environment is thriving.
To get there, King believes New Zealand’s food system — put simply how you grow, make and eat food — needs to be redesigned for modern day challenges such as climate change and global food chain crises.
The key to being resilient in the face of these problems is focusing on regional food systems and supporting farmers, growers and manufacturers, she says.
"The more resilient we are as a nation, when there is a shock to the system such as a climatic event or pandemic or geopolitical event, we can be more resilient and there is a lot to be said for that in the times we are living in."
King has been working in food systems for 10 years after having her "aha" moment after she completed her masters in Europe and took a job in Germany where she helped put on a climate change adaptation forum focusing on resilient urban food where they introduced the food systems approach. An advisory board schooled King up on what that meant.
"That was a real critical time for my professional work. They really guided me and set me on a pathway I haven’t gotten off since and it’s been a decade now."
Back in New Zealand, King set up Spira in 2017 to help more businesses and organisations throughout the country contribute to positive fixes in the food system.
Then when the Covid-19 pandemic hit, it exposed a lot of issues in New Zealand’s food systems and got King thinking about pulling together all her thoughts and experience into a book that could help people understand the term "food system".
The issues faced during the pandemic have since been reinforced by the recent storms in Auckland and Hawke’s Bay and Bay of Plenty.
"For a lot of years I had to describe what the food system was but now days there is a lot more awareness around the topic, people are far more engaged, I would say the time is right for this.
"There is lot more awareness around the fragility of the food system and what we might need to do about it. Now I feel like we need as many people on board to understand and think about this as we can and the book felt like a good medium to get that out to people."
"It’s not meant to be negative, it’s supposed to give you as many ideas as possible to cultivate some change and I think when you see the full system and full picture [that is possible]."
In her work she has seen positive change come about.
"I truly believe that it is only in your local realm that you’ll make the real change."
King, a mum of two who lives on Waiheke Island, points out not everything about the food system is bad. There are great people, great growers, in the industry. It employs a lot of people and feeds a lot of people.
"But we can do better, there are shortcomings in it."
Those shortcomings such as it wasting too much, making some richer while others cannot afford to put food on the table, poisoning and breaking people and health systems, to name a few, can be overwhelming.
"I want it to be OK to feel overwhelmed. It is a huge system and the problems are potentially big, [but] within that there are pathways forward where we can make changes that can help us."
She believes during the past 70 years the world has lost sight that it is a fundamental human right to have food and eat it, probably because of money, greed and private food interests.
"If the purpose of a food system is to feed people then we are failing as we are not feeding everyone and we are not doing completely well in New Zealand either and if the purpose is to feed people healthy food well we know we are falling short and if the purpose is to improve the environment then we are not doing great either."
Changing the way people look at food based on rethinking the whole food system is what she calls "re-fooding", hence the name of her book.
"No-one has ever sat down and properly designed it in recent times with the modern challenges we face. It is time to have a proper think about how we design these systems whether it’s from the food business perspective, or household level or bigger government level."
Understanding the parts that comprise the food system — growing (soil, water), making (manufacturing and processing), transport and logistics, selling food (eating and accessing it) and the waste that happens along the way — and knowing the impacts of these parts on the environment and health is equally as important, she says.
"One key part of this is to have more than one lens to assess something’s role in our food system. You can’t just look at the cost of ingredients, or food waste, or climate change impacts. Use as many lenses as you can."
The other was the hidden influences on people’s food choices. She spoke to specialists in different fields for the book and discovered the way urban environments are designed leads people towards certain choices.
"It shocked me. That was quite frightening for me as I hadn’t considered the impact of that before on that scale. There are a lot of things we are not aware of around food environments, places where food is sold to people, like a dairy opposite a school, where a supermarket is in community, the layout of takeaways in poorer communities."
While it can be confronting it also shows if it can be designed this way then it can also be designed so the healthy choice is the easy choice, where affordable food from local growers can be accessed easily by everyone.
"I’m not saying there shouldn’t be choices for people, but it’s not actually a choice if the healthy options are boxed out by highly-processed imported food targeted at say small children."
The fact that New Zealand had many amazing growers and farmers producing good-quality food that was mostly sent overseas yet had people who were going hungry has to be looked at, she said.
Aware there were important economic, trade and social factors involved in the creation of the situation if that piece could be solved "we’d be such an amazing little country", King believed.
"I believe we can improve how we do that. We have strong food economy and we shouldn’t let go of that, it is a big advantage for our country but I think we could rethink some ways we do that so we are not forgetting people who are not eating.
"If we take the food systems approach I argue, and really think about the full system, it wouldn’t be a problem. We’d be finding ways economically and creatively to solve some of those challenges while bringing in a good income for our country."
Given New Zealand’s low population and relatively large landmass with a favourable growing climate, compared to many countries, it does not have an excuse not to tackle these issues, King says.
"While I believe everyone can make changes and have an impact ultimately for there to be proper re-design of the food system it will take proper systemic change at a larger, higher level probably out of reach of most people."
But that does not mean people cannot start to push back on these issues to force change at a higher level.
THE BOOK
Re-food. Emily King, Mary Eagan Publishing, $49.95
