Rural Futures – Meeting Policy and Market Challenges: Secure Food Supply and Market Integrity Kevin Steel, Principal Adviser, Strategy Development 24 September 2009

World Grain Supply –Peaks mid 1980’s –Steady declining trend World population – billion – billion –20409 billion Secure Food Supply? After Cribb 2009 – The Coming Famine: The Risk to Global Food Security

Climate change Water scarcity Land scarcity –Urban encroachment on arable area –Land degradation/desertification –Peak land?? Nutrient Scarcity –Peak phosphorus?? Challenges to Secure Food Supply? After Cribb 2009 – The Coming Famine: The Risk to Global Food Security

Strong negative trend in the average annual public R & D spend Strong negative trend in growth rate of developing country annual average crop yields Trend to increasing droughtiness, extreme weather events and pests Fisheries collapse – the maximum sustainable wild fisheries capture from the worlds oceans has probably been reached Global Futures? After Cribb 2009 – The Coming Famine: The Risk to Global Food Security

To double global food production with: –Half the present available water –Far smaller productive land area –Little or no fossil fuel –Scarce and very costly fertilisers –More droughts and heightened climatic uncertainty The Global Challenge? After Cribb 2009 – The Coming Famine: The Risk to Global Food Security

In a global sense New Zealand and Scotland cannot feed the world Issue for New Zealand – “food security” or “economic security through food” New Zealand’s economic future is strongly linked to the production and export of safe and sustainable food to international markets Drive to generate greater output and value from the natural resource base to pay our way on the world creates pressure on the environment Secure Food Supply – A New Zealand Context?

Focus for the Future? –Food production with integrated safety, quality and environmental integrity Requires; –focus on innovation and value –win/win solutions that maximise output efficiency while minimising environmental externalities –critical review, and adjustment, of current institutions and approaches –ensuring people capability is fit for purpose –widespread culture of delivering world’s best practice Challenges to science, the environment and farm management Underpinned by the technology transfer system Food Production and Environmental Integrity

Current value of exports $11 billion – 27% merchandised export income Any forecast of long term economic growth includes significant growth in dairy production and value Economic growth from three broad sources –Conversion of land from other uses –Increasing productivity – more milk from the current herd and more cost effective production –Increasing the value of processed product Challenges to science, the environment and farm management Underpinned by the technology transfer system Dairy and the Economic Growth Agenda

The Technology Transfer Problem