The latest KPMG Agribusiness Agenda focuses on growth and resilience during very difficult times for the food and fibre sector.
The agenda was released at the agriculture sector breakfast on the first day of the deferred Fieldays in Hamilton.
Global head of agribusiness for KPMG Ian Proudfoot expects the food and fibre sector to become a General Election 2023 campaign battleground given the existing tensions, particularly around climate change.
This risks entrenching divisions among farmers and growers and between rural and urban.
He said 2023 is looking like it will be a tough year economically as the world goes through a much more traditional demand-riven recession, which will be longer lasting than the initial supply-side shock because of the response to the covid pandemic.
Food and fibre companies will have to adapt quickly to the effects of sustained recession on consumers’ purchasing.
Investments to support long-term growth and prosperity will be different from the yield and quality enhancements of the past.
Proudfoot spoke of the need to have infrastructure in place to secure and enhance the sector’s licence to operate with the environment, the local community and consumers around the world, and future-proof the value chains that align with the needs of the community and customers.
“If we fail to invest in our licence to operate and let it slowly erode over time, it will be close to impossible for future generations to restore this,” Proudfoot said.
The second chapter of the 2022 KPMG Agribusiness Agenda has case studies illustrating aspects of food and fibre sector growth and resilience.
The themes are: taking control of reconnecting with the world, accelerating towards the future of work, capturing the unique opportunity in decarbonisation, collaborating substantively, bold steps now to benefit future generations, and a food system that works for all New Zealanders.
The final case study looks at Meat the Need, Feed Out and the New Zealand Food Network, with its 60-100 foodbanks across the country.
Meat the Need co-founder Wayne Langford, also national vice-president of Federated Farmers, said the challenge is food insecurity across NZ, to be addressed by donations from farmers without creating new systems and infrastructure.
“The pandemic really propelled us forward and forced us to look at how we could leverage existing supply chain infrastructure,” he said.
“Silver Fern Farms gratefully came on board, and they now pack and distribute all donated meat for us.”
Langford said changing the mindset in the sector would force accelerated innovation, tackling biodiversity loss and new product development.
KPMG co-author Ainslie Ballinger said changing mindsets would bring full understanding of the true value of growing and producing food – not just the economic cost and benefit, but the cost to nature, the benefit and cost to our health and wellbeing, and cultural and social benefits.
“Collaboration and partnership lie at the core of the food and fibre sector achieving new growth, while having the resilience to weather further shocks that are bound to come our way,” the KPMG reports concludes.
