The pandemic has given us the possibility to build a safer, more sustainable and more resistant food formula, a healthier formula that helps others more equitably. This is the testing time in a new series that examines the effects of Covid-19 in New Zealand. in partnership with Te Poanaha Matatini.
Wednesday is h-ng day at the Papatoetoe Food Hub. People come from all over Auckland to pick up original h-ng, cooked on the floor. For the same value as the driving service, you can eat delicious and nutritious food ready the net, and your cash will remain there, but this important source of food from the grid was suddenly cut off in March 2020 when the country entered a lockout.
Restrictions on covid-19 management have highlighted vulnerabilities in Aotearoa’s food system. Many other people suddenly couldn’t access food. This shows the economic and social dangers of concentration of strength and cash in a few giant food companies, and reliance on global supply chains of key products.
New Zealand’s existing food formula focuses on yield and profit. Large farms are interconnected with wholesalers, distributors, agents and merchants, and run through two dominant supermarkets and their partners.
Before the pandemic, under traditional economic measures, this formula in an encouraging position. In mid-2019, the Outlook for the situation of primary industries report showed an expansion in exports for the current year in a row, and dairy products and meat are expected to increase to 5. 7% and 6. 4%, respectively, on export profits in 2018, and horticulture through 13. 7%.
But this security mirage evaporated with the Covid-19 pandemic. We know more shocks and crises are coming. We have the possibility to create a safer, more sustainable and more resistant food formula, a healthier formula that helps others more equitably.
Developing an environmentally friendly and socially inclusive food economy is not only ambitious, it is within our reach. Better yet, we already have the wisdom and the team to do it.
Community organizations have been dealing with the consequences of inequalities and inadequacy in our food formulas for decades. They have painted difficult cases to make adjustments to local food formulas. These paintings have generated a great deal of local wisdom and laid the foundation on which you can rebuild a better food formula than before Covid-19.
Kate Raworth is here to help, with her Donut Economics concept. In contrast to the 20th-century economic orthodoxy of perpetual growth, Raworth advocates a thriving 21st-century economy.
Visualize this with two concentric radar maps representing human well-being encompassed in two boundaries: social and ecological. Imagine it as a doughnut, with the minimum social norms as an inner ring and the ecological barriers of the planet as an outer ring.
Between these two boundaries, it is where human beings can thrive and where everyone has what they need: water and healthy food for political voice, peace and justice.
This concept reminds us that we are deeply interconnected, whether between us and the physical and living world in which we exist, we will have to strike a balance that prevents communities and families from falling into the hollow doughnut where human rights are limited. uneven, avoiding exceeding earth’s ecological boundaries.
We forgot the herbal environment of the traditional economy, adding short-term orthodox accounting practices The Aotearoa Environment 2019 report reported an alarming deterioration in soil and water quality related to agriculture, biodiversity loss, the effects of overexploitation and contributions to climate replacement in food production.
We know that this environmental damage, in turn, will have serious long-term consequences for the well-being of Aotearoa, but our physical condition is already affected by the types of food we can eat. We have one of the obesity rates in the world. – a threat to many fitness problems.
And the reasons for obesity are unevenly distributed, with some communities surpassed by a large number of fast food outlets and ubiquitous marketing of bad products. breakrapids or children’s lunches, limited green spaces and poor urban design that does not inspire exercise.
Instead of measuring our food sector through its contribution to GDP, we may wonder how it enables fair living standards, supports the right to thrive, and contributes to social solidarity and to Americans and dynamic communities.
By imaginatively rebuilding food production, distribution and consumption in Aotearoa after Covid-19, we can create greater food security in times of uncertainty, as well as repair prosperous lives and livelihoods.
Kate Raworth recently reduced the Donut to city level. It combined local aspiration – to be disgustingly rich other people in a disgustingly rich position – with a global duty to live in a way that respects all other people and the entire planet.
Sustainable food systems play a key role in achieving any of these goals by providing us with access to affordable, nutritious, nutrient-rich, sustainable and locally produced food, as well as agricultural operations, both large and small.
We are moved from a traditional and globalized style of productive food systems to one that encompasses links to homes, marae, networked orchards, schools, small food stores, markets, small farms and local organizations, such as the surrounding herbal environment.
Sustainable food systems already exist and contribute particularly to food production. A 2010 study showed that 67 networked orchards in New York with 1. 7 hectares in production produced about 87,690 pounds (approximately US$214,060) of food. A similar study in Philadelphia indicated that it valued at US$4. 9 million of food produced in the summer of 2008.
Many local communities in Aotearoa have also begun this transition. Healthy Families South Auckland, an initiative led by The Cause Collective and The Southern Initiative, reinventing stronger food systems in southern Auckland long before Covid-19 became a surname.
Together, they have the unusual purpose of endorsing all South Aucklanders residents to improve fitness and well-being through cultural, social and physical environments.
They contributed to the joint design of a networked lawn at a Sikh temple in Takanini and tested a networked lawn on disused land at Al-Madinah School in M. A.
Sikh Gurdwara Sri Kalgidhar Sahib Temple feeds thousands of people in southern Auckland for the loose every week. The products are grown in their gardens, planted and harvested through volunteers, academics and network workers.
The South Auckland Southern Healthy Families and Southern Families Initiative have developed Good Food Roadmap, an action plan for a sustainable food formula that applies the doughnut economy to southern Auckland.
“The Good Food Roadmap is a framework for others who already know they need to paint in this space,” says Julio Bin of The Southern Initiative and Healthy Families South Auckland. “It’s a unifying message with some kind of strategic goal. “
The five steps of the food roadmap are:
Sharing goals means that everyone can adopt the food roadmap in their paintings while contributing to the food system in general.
This is precisely what Healthy Families South Auckland achieves by supporting the community-run Papatoetoe Food Hub.
Papatoetoe Food Hub serves fresh food produced at other costs to suit other monetary circumstances.
Like other network catering organizers, the Papatoetoe Food Hub discovered that Covid-19 created the situations for rest and reflection. They were forced to make decisions that their food source for the network in a positive way.
When Covid-19 arrived, everything had to be prevented and they had a month to think. “I think it’s very valuable,” Bin says. We restructure the total menu, the total place, for pick-up and drop-off. And this is going to be, like phase 3 of the assignment and suddenly they’ve become phase one.
Your network has also changed. Bin says that before Covid-19, “it was going well and suddenly zero. “When the Food Hub restarted after closing, they had their most active month. “July was only three times the previous sales,” Bin says. “I think food dates have changed. People had other appointments with the Food Hub. This comes from the center: a little kindness in each and every transaction. “
“The farmers from Pukekohe brought in a ton of vegetables like carrots, onions and pumpkins that they couldn’t sell due to the closure. They peeled it all and turned it into soup for local schools and libraries. They did it to give back to the community, because they had all of them. those products that were going to waste. This has created a very smart spirit in the community. And I think that meant a lot in terms of other people who couldn’t spend there. People had more time and higher sales because other people buy locally. ” .
The infrastructure that will be held through papatoetoe Food Hub’s public-private-community partnership encourages others to work with iwi, the community, businesses and public organizations to place and reduce barriers.
“We used an underutilized communal area that was intended for development,” Bin says. “This is one of the many houses that the city council owns, right there. The business style necessarily to reduce overhead, such as leasing and electricity ownership, etc.
“If you go, you may not see any logos or anything similar to the board. This is the population that owns all the kaupapa and takes it further. It’s working right now, so we know there’s a style that can be replicated and that we can do it somewhere else. “
This illustrates the kind of collective, collaborative and information-gathering technique for the well-being of the network that holds a wonderful promise for the reconstruction of Aotearoa after Covid-19.
It was vital to have low startup prices to make Food Hub sustainable. “From the coffee device to the tables and chairs, everything is recycled,” Bin says. “Just to develop the concept that you can start with minimal investment. There are so many resources available, you know, you just have to locate the right people, the right relationships and ask for help. “
Bin says Papatoetoe Food Hub is now an example to others. “More and more visitors are coming for inspiration: what are the rules?Why don’t we have more spaces like this?Why is it so hard?”
The Hub has stopped innovating. There are plans for educational workshops, more resources for composting and growing food on site, and intentions to bring the umu back, just to get started.
The Southern Initiative also supports Maori and Pacific corporations in government and trade chain sources, which is a deep and controllable lever for local development.
Its importance has been taken up through the Sustainable Enterprises Network, which has created a resource that explains how an organization can and intentionally address the social demand situations of its own society and society as a whole through its purchases. buyers and senior executives.
The Southern Initiative introduced He Waka Eke Noa (now Amotai) in 2017 to link Maori and Pacific-owned companies to buyers looking for goods and jobs. The call comes from the well-known whakatauk, which translates as “we are all in the canoe, without exception”- acting as a collective, running in unity and leaving no one behind.
The centre’s administrators are of Maori origin, the Cook Islands and South Asia, reflecting Papatoetoe’s demographics and informing the menu’s cultural offering, which includes hanga, umu and bubbling.
Bin that the center has become a viable option for McDonald’s. “It’s the ability to decide what you need to eat. For the same money they will spend to get bad food, they can have smart food, which is made through the community, and the cash will stay there. And it will also generate social intelligence. “
The Papatoetoe Food Hub saves 500 kg of food to be discarded both one and two weeks, basically in the supermarket a hundred meters away. 70% of its dishes are made with recycled foods. On-site composting diverts one hundred kg of Week’s food from landfills. This waste feeds planters on site, to generate more vegetables for cooking and experience learning opportunities for schools.
“The concept is to further expand social enterprises and networks and opportunities,” Bin says. “To employ someone to take care of the fertilizer, to put science on them, to perceive the price of the soil, to involve children, is about connecting other people with it. “
Papatoetoe Food Hub’s precepts reflect the economy of doughnuts. Bin explains how they paint according to the precept of food “for the pocket, for the puku, for the planet”.
“Food is a catalyst for systemic replacement; it is not only about traditional notions of ‘health’, but also about intellectual health, the environment and the local economy. We use the simplicity of the food message for the complexity of the results. “
When talking to Alice McSherry of the Auckland Permaculture Trust, it is transparent that what we call a “grass” is subjective. When he explains the precept of edge permaculture and the marginal assessment, he speaks specifically of dandelions: “These are nutrients – rich weed, a superior source of vitamin C, and the same circle of relatives as the poh, do you think?Medicinal plants are discovered at the edges.
Permaculture and regenerative agriculture work on the principles of maintaining healthy biodiversity, better water quality and carbon relief at stake, while regenerating quality productive soils. unrest in New Zealand agriculture, but is used in a personalized way for soils, climates and express cultural contexts.
The Auckland Permaculture Trust is creating the Auckland Permaculture Workshop, a one-year course that includes the practice of the principles of “fertile gardening. “McSherry explains that “you will be informed through the procedure to do so. Acting, and not only through thought, we have deepened our commitment to the total system. “
Community legislation in your Piritahi Marae on Waiheke Island has shown how fragile our food formula is. She describes how, before Covid-19, marae grass had its own limitations, basically the cash to buy seedlings and the time for active stewardship.
Covid-19 created his own riots, but he also galvanized other people. It sounded like a call to action in the gardeners’ community. “Not to fall in love with this, but even for other people who knew these things, it’s more important. What better time than now to put your hands in the mud?»
Piritahi Marae mara kai strengthens the network’s bond: through a rangatahi program for schooling and cooking literacy, intergenerational conversations as they run in the garden, mutuals for other members’ social enterprises, as well as for fitness and well-being, and say – and participate – in the way their food is produced.
Many networked orchards across the country have demonstrated the agility and dynamism of small-scale organizations when they replaced their operations in reaction to the Covid-19. They provided food to communities by innovation in online orders for the delivery of vegetable boxes, online farmers markets and national open food network.
While the learning curve is steep for some and management is a challenge, the benefits to the network were undeniable. Community gardens have been reconfigured not only as food producers, but also as educators, restoring lost skills around (often urban) food production.
Andy Boor, coordinator of Kelmarna Gardens, an established municipal farm and a biological network lawn in Auckland, says: “For many people, it was a wake-up call, realizing that the food formula we have is not resilient, not necessarily interested in what they want, and for the maximum number of New Zealanders, it was the first time in their lives that there was a threat.
His netpaintings showed a “post-Covid call to acquire the skills desired to grow the food themselves. “The gardens had to meet this need by organizing garden painting workshops on weekends, which were sold twice as fast as before. More and more people are paintings in the area, which makes the opportunity to acquire knowledge about food culture even more attractive.
“We are also construction networks with other small local producers. And it’s a way to succeed in other people who wouldn’t necessarily place this position on their own,” Boor says.
This kind of local empowerment, with practical wisdom about self-suffestment, can simply steer us away from the hole in the walnut, but we have to wonder who has the time, resources and privileges to participate. A fairer food formula would mean we can only all.
The daily, diversified and small-scale source of food products meets pressing local needs, but we also want to develop power and resilience. Reorienting our investments towards local production, distribution and intake is a no-brainer.
The Covid-19 pandemic has forced countries to implement responses that have undermined food supply chains: closed borders, lack of migrant workers, limited land, sea and air transport, and forced social distance have hampered the agricultural products, food and food industry.
While our government has expressed optimism about economic strength, this prospect is unlikely. The huge debt incurred through the constraints we have committed to combating Covid-19, aggravated through the main government stimulus packages delivered in 2020, presents economic challenges.
Those who have experienced the difficulties of past recessions naturally panic about the possibility of compatibility of economic benefits with Covid-19. However, the pandemic is also an opportunity to recognize that our national food formula has compatibility for its purpose.
The optimal food formula would provide environmental, social and economic benefits through agriculture and food production, distribution and consumption, and would cause any degradation.
The Covid-19 crisis provides an opportunity to think long-term and disruptively; different fully trained execution strategies emerge, which are involved through the co-development of concepts and practices, such as reports made through and within the communities they invest. in them.
Some food manufacturers feel we are facing the opportunity to re-evaluate purchasing characteristics and reconsider what is attractive to New Zealanders.
But for farms and manufacturers whose companies need immediate help, monetary security is the main urgent explanation for why, and doing anything else feels like a huge amount of physical and intellectual energy.
While our corporations and successive governments have traditionally subsidized or directly funded a chemical, monoculture or animal-intensive food production system, we now have the opportunity to reorient those budgets in a different way. along with significant monetary and other incentives.
New Zealand’s recovery from its food formulas maximizes Te Tiriti’s partnership opportunities in and between public, personal and networking contexts, to reflect on how we “rebuild better,” by creating a national food formula and a long period in which others can live off the land. sea and sea.
We will have to resist the temptation to settle for simple answers that lack ambition or creativity, or threaten to reactivate a suspended “old normality. “We can be informed of what happened and place the sweet in the doughnut where everyone has the opportunity to thrive, without unloading the prices of the crisis on the poorest and devastate the environment in its wake.
Anna Matheson is a senior professor of health policy at Te Herenga Waka, University of Victoria, Wellington. Anna has experience in public health and equity and is interested in effective tactics for community fitness and well-being.
Jonathan Burgess is a communications and media senior at Te Poanaha Matatini.
Additional contributions made by:
Alice McSherry is secretary of the Auckland Permaculture Trust and a member of Piritahi Marae mara kai on Waiheke Island.
Julio Bin is the innovation leader with The Southern Initiative and Healthy Families South Auckland.
Andy Boor is the head of engagement and Kelmarna Gardens in Auckland.
This content created in a paid partnership with Te Poanaha Matatini.
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