Protecting New Zealand’s food security

New Zealand’s growers are central to this country’s food security. Every day, they do the work of getting healthy produce onto the plates of families across the country and across the globe and that role has never been more important.

Growers have always had to manage risk, from droughts and floods to the day-to-day uncertainty that comes with working so closely with the land and the weather.

But those pressures have intensified, making it harder and harder for growers to keep doing that essential job.

New Zealand growers produce around 90 per cent of the country’s fresh vegetables. When that system comes under strain, food security is not an abstract policy issue - it is a direct threat to the affordability, availability and resilience of the food on New Zealanders’ tables.

That is why the Government must take a genuinely effective, co-ordinated national approach to supporting food production.

New Zealand faces challenges that many other horticultural nations simply do not. Our remoteness means we live with the tyranny of distance in a very real way.

Because we are so geographically isolated, our sector depends on long, complex supply chains for the inputs it needs to keep producing food.

Fuel, fertiliser and agrichemicals are not optional extras. Without them, food cannot be grown, harvested or reliably delivered to market.

The pandemic exposed just how fragile those supply chains can be. More recently, conflict in the Middle East has again highlighted the risks that come with disruption to shipping, freight and global input markets.

At the same time, extreme weather events are becoming more frequent and more severe.

The implications for New Zealand horticulture are serious. If growers cannot access the tools, infrastructure and policy settings they need, productivity will suffer - and so will the resilience of our food system.

Australia has recognised the scale of this challenge and is developing Feeding Australia, a national food security strategy designed to strengthen the resilience and security of its food system.

We need to do the same, and in the case of vegetables, introduce a National Direction for Commercial Vegetable Production.

Some vegetable growers are still facing unworkable regional plans that could leave them unable to secure a consent in areas like Waikato or the Horizons region.

Given that New Zealand can’t import the vegetables needed to feed our own people, it is essential for public health and domestic food security that vegetable growers can keep growing.

Providing for the supply of fresh fruits and vegetables in the goals of the respecting planning and natural environment bills will help growers continue to produce healthy food to feed New Zealanders at a reasonable cost while incorporating best practices to boost our precious soils.

But for that plan to succeed, it must reflect the full complexity of the horticulture ecosystem rather than treat food production as a narrow land-use issue.

That means taking account of the various drivers and inputs such as labour availability, biosecurity, water security, energy, access to modern crop-protection tools, fair and competitive grocery markets, unnecessary red tape, and the infrastructure needed to move food efficiently around the country. We need to view food production through a holistic lens.

That broader approach is reflected in Horticulture New Zealand’s 2026 Election Manifesto, which calls for a long-term, consistent national approach to land use and food production.

We need freshwater and climate planning that recognises food production as a national priority, not an afterthought.

We need less duplication and better alignment between regional and local rules so councils are required to consider the impact of their decisions on fruit and vegetable production.

We need streamlined consenting and compliance pathways for horticulture, including for workers’ accommodation, glasshouses, irrigation schemes, and water use and discharge. The recognition of industry assurance plans in freshwater farm planning is a good first step.

National direction must allow for crop rotation, avoid unintended consequences while delivering practical, achievable outcomes for growers.

And all government agencies should be required to assess the cumulative impact of new regulation on both food production and affordability before that regulation is introduced.

New Zealand’s growers help put food on the plate of every New Zealander and consumers in our global markets. Yet too often they are working against a system that slows them down instead of backing them to succeed.

It is time to look across the sector as a whole, understand how its many interconnected parts work together, and put in place the policy settings that match that reality and enable our ambition to double the farmgate value of horticulture production by 2035.

That is how we will give growers the confidence to invest, adapt and keep delivering safe, high-quality food for New Zealand and the world, while continuing to meet the environmental and food-safety standards the public rightly expects.