I am sick to death of having to compete with the 40million middle class Chinese who can compete for prices to food that is grown in NZ!
By the numbers: Who is eating all of our food if we make enough to feed 40 million people?
Experts are calling for a national food plan to tackle problems of food insecurity – despite the country producing enough food to feed 40 million people a year.
New Zealand ranks 14th in the world for food self-sufficiency – but you wouldn’t always know it by our supermarket shelves.
So how much food are we actually producing, and who is eating it all?
40 million
As a nation of five million people, New Zealand feeds more than 40 million global consumers each year, according to New Zealand Trade and Enterprise.
..why should we be competing against international prices for food grown here?
We need a kiwi subsidy on all local produce to recognize that producers have already used water and created local climate changing gases to create their product and as such consumers have already paid a price just to get the product to their table.
We should feed the 5million here first before boasting about feeding 40million world wide!
Calls to ‘feed the 5 million first’ before exporting NZ food
People are going hungry even though New Zealand produces enough food to feed 40 million – and it’s spurring calls for the country to “feed the five million first”.
Almost 40 percent of New Zealand households experience food insecurity, while 19 percent of children live in households that experience food insecurity.
Poverty researcher Dr Rebekah Graham said while working on her thesis on food insecurity, she interviewed a woman who walked for 90 minutes each day to get a free community meal.
…it is outrageous that children born in this nation can not taste the harvest of NZ because it is being sold to the wealthy overseas!
We need a Kiwi subsidy on all food and we can do that by removing GST on all NZ made raw food.
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The reason NZ has any infrastructure at all is the 65% of our overseas income that is earned because wealthy overseas people buy our superior produce. Instead of discriminating against certain groups for a food subsidy here in NZ, the obvious elephant in the room is the tax on food.GST. The argument against removing this tax has always been the cost of administering a selective GST. Well IMO thats a pathetic argument when all it means is that there should be more effort put into how to administer a selective GST tax in a more efficient way. If it ends up costing a bit more tax payers money so be it as at least the people of NZ would enjoy the food from their own country untaxed.
I don’t believe exempting food from GST,would make an ounce of difference.
Careful shopping and budgeting can save more than 15% and price conditioning would ensure just more profits for the supermarket duopoly.
Kiwis are rinsed on more than just food.
The social costs of the housing ponzi which can take over 50% of incomes in rent or mortgage payments is the underlying problem.
The government could declare that agricultural production is a matter of national security, and therefore exports must pass through a single desk marketer owned by the state, in the manner of the Wheat Board.
If it was determined that there were domestic shortages, this Agricultural Export Board could simply refuse to take additional produce for export.
It was fascinating to see that Consumer Magazine (hardly any sort of revolutionary gazette) had recommended this model be applied to the domestic wholesale grocery trade.
We need to feed our own at subsidised rates on the back of lucrative exports.
If there is food shortages or scarcity then export markets get turned off like a fucken tap.
By legislation.
So stupid.
What is stupid is that in a country that produces an abundance of food we can’t feed our own people cheaply and reliably while at the same time we ship it off overseas for the same price or cheaper as we pay locally.
Australia requires that a minimum of 30% of any food that is exported is held behind for its own citizens first and sold to supermarkets at cost price to grow. In the event of food shortages it all equalises.
Well there is the most stupid comment ive ever heard,. Who do you think pays for outr health system, education system and no doubt your benefit? The Chinese you fucking moron
Nah. Just build more McDonalds and KFC’s, and other fast-food poisonous crap food outlets! NZ is a petri dish for all kinds of experiments.
They could then sell us plastic meat tofu burgers and chips made from the skins of the potatoes they’ll export for a better price offshore!
Artificially produced chickens and eggs too for KFC!
NZ’ders are suckers for the best new thing kinda shit! Gen Z and the moaning Mels are programmed for this shit.
Or you could make sufficient economic reforms to lift NZers’ productivity back into that of a first World nation.
And you could free up the supply of land for housing – by crushing the NIMBYs and councils who fight that – so houses go back to being three times average incomes, not ten times average income. Then the food could be afforded by the poor.
Well said Ada .Tinkering with the GST will not solve the main problem of poverty. Food would not reduce by 15 per cent as admin and normal business practices would soon find excuses to up proces.
To me the 2 main moves to improve the health and welfare is more income and more people learning how to cook good healthy food from seasonal crops .
Ada I agree with you of course,because you put forward sensible solutions.
So stupid
I’m not saying tinkering with the GST Trevor I’m saying take it off food. It shouldn’t be there. I know the effect of doing this doesn’t mean a 15% reduction but it’s a tax on food. Get rid of it.
Ada ,wanting to free up land to build houses on. Well plenty of land on the flood plains in Hawkes Bay. Some will give it away now. The new sub divisions in Napier are a threat to themselves and creating extra catchment that now floods the older suburbs. However in Auckland I’m sure they’ll still build all over Pukekohe market gardens. The trouble is people want to live by the Dairy, by McDonalds, by the river , by the sea. Oh and don’t forget that great view from the tops of cliffs.
instead of a subsidy just say 5/10 whatever percent has to be sold in NZ at fixed prices leaving the vast majority for export…kiwis get cheaper food and NZ business still gets export profits
Yep, I’ve often wondered about that. It’s quite annoying to think that we should have to pay ‘international prices’ for anything produced here when there are environmental costs that the NZ tax/rate payer has to cover.
A quota system might work well. Currently we also get the leftovers from stuff that’s not good enough to export.
Supermarkets. oil companies and others are STILL playing anti-competitive silly buggers too, all the while trying to bullshit and spin their way out of findings of various ‘inquiries’ that suggest “something must be done”
Every time the prices go up the treasure gets a hit in GST. And Grant boy loves GST. The chinese people buying cheap food are not your problem. Your government is.
Have to agree, generally speaking. As a producer the Govt controlled cost inputs are a large component of the output costs.
Single desk boards also add significant costs.
On a very good day to sell my product I’ll get maybe 9-10% of the price I see it in the supermarket the next day. I’m lumped with all the production cost but the ticket clippers get all the profit.
A country is as wealthy in proportion to its productivity and/or stuff it can sell overseas. Its just like any other business.
That’s why the Western world is wealthy – they outstrip everyone else, still, in productivity.
NZ does not produce computers, smart phones, and the dumb fraction of our population is ever increasing. Our competitive advantage is agriculture.
Who pays for Pharmac, modern infrastructure, first world infrastructure, your PC etc – –its because you live in a wealthy country, still, and that wealth is largely based on the agricultural sector selling overseas.
If we stop selling out stuff overseas and we soon end up as poor as PNG or Tonga.
Fabulous and sensible Jack GM,but unfortunately many on this site have no knowledge,or at best a poor understanding of basic economics.
So stupid.
Food and water have strategic value higher than your economic value.
People will riot over food and water.
c’mon jack 5/10 percent reserved for NZ sales is not going to bankrupt anyone
Grant’s Super Tax.
It’s beyond me why we have to pay more for our own food than someone in Norway.
Do we?
all I can say is a few years ago I worked with a girl from norway a high tax high cost communistical socialistical country allegedly…..and she was shocked by how expensive everything from electronics to groceries where…ok sample of one bob the last but never the less an example…
Because of our “free” health care we already subsidise animal products, fast food and sugar since they do not pay the health system cost that the majority incur by excess consumption of those products. While people want the price reduced for their favourite foods we will be better off if only healthy food is subsidised.
As always, its just fine to steal from others.
In fact, it apparently makes you better than the rest of us.
The old saying–“don”t let a good disaster go to waste” as run by Benard Hickey earlier this week, applies to food prices and a whole lot of other stuff. Strike hard and fast. Just Do it.
All the parties are so used to timidity, 3 year cycles and getting re-elected that they are shit scared of bold moves. PM Chris could easily implement such measures to acclaim from working class people.
Doesnt matter which govt you put in charge in this country, more emphasis is going into helping business making huge profits rather than helping the people who live here.
We have a poverty problem, we have low wages, we have expensive everything.
Doesnt get any more evidenced based than that