Source: New Zealand Government
Tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou, tēnā koutou katoa. Thank you for your invitation to speak here today.
I’ve spent a bit of time in the Waikato region lately, what with the WasteMINZ conference and then Fieldays, and I’m pleased to be back here today to join you for the 2023 Milk Quality Conference.
I want to acknowledge your achievements and contributions to the New Zealand economy and food export reputation around the world.
I also want to recognise the hard work and dedication of you all, particularly as you continued to deliver during all the challenges that have faced us in recent years as a result of COVID-19.
New Zealand has a strong food regulatory system, one that is neatly described by this year’s conference theme – Maintaining Global Trust.
We have a reputation as a safe food-producing nation, with high food safety and animal welfare standards creating high-quality, premium product.
The Ministry for Primary Industries and New Zealand Food Safety have play alongside you, providing a robust and internationally recognised regulatory framework that’s trusted around the world.
New Zealand Food Safety works to make sure food produced in New Zealand is safe, suitable, and accurately labelled, all the way from pasture to plate – or cup.
This position of global trust benefits all of us, and is vital for our collective prosperity, economic development, and New Zealand’s ‘brand’.
We see this right across the board – from the 50,000 jobs in the dairy industry and the livelihoods of the 300,000-plus other New Zealanders who work in the primary industries, to the many other jobs our exporting supports.
It’s also in the many trade and diplomatic doors open to us.
Global Trust
Global trust in the ability of New Zealand’s regulatory system to deliver quality milk products is a fundamental foundation of our export reputation.
We’ve seen first-hand the advantages that come from the confidence our markets have in our food safety system.
It’s also in their confidence that we can and deal with threats to our dairy products.
Achieving a high level of trust within our markets has seen New Zealand’s food safety system recognised as equivalent to those of some of our most significant markets.
This, in turn, can provide New Zealand exporters with a market access advantage.
It is important that we appreciate the value of trust, earned over more than 100 years.
The pay-off is that New Zealand dairy products often command a premium.
We need to continue demonstrating the quality of our milk and telling our story to overseas markets.
Of course, trust isn’t simply a product of time, persistence or luck. Our markets generally operate on the basis of “Trust but Verify”.
As such, our dairy products are often subject to testing at borders.
When we consider the number of markets we sell to, you start appreciating the scale and intensity of the testing regime.
Some is focused on pathogens, and some looks at the compositional conformance of our dairy products.
Increasingly, testing is looking at a vast range of chemical residues and contaminants.
And if that wasn’t enough, there is also a strong focus on product authenticity and integrity.
When we look more closely at market concerns, it’s clear that the manufacture and export of dairy products that are safe, suitable and of the highest quality relies very heavily on the raw milk produced by more than 11,000 dairy farmers.
It’s your commitment to meeting the required standards that puts New Zealand at the front of global dairy trade.
This shows just how important cooperation between the various parties with skin in the game – MPI, dairy manufacturers, dairy farmers, and support organisations, researchers and those who help connect these various parts – really is.
Food Standards and Verification
From a food safety perspective, it might seem that NZ Food Safety has the easiest job – and perhaps we do, given that regulation of the dairy sector and milk production started more than 130 years ago.
However, NZ Food Safety is constantly monitoring and adjusting as necessary.
Monitoring means looking at milk integrity, chemical residues and contaminants, and the conformance of our milk to various international and market standards.
Recognising emerging risks early is essential, and NZ Food Safety is constantly on the look-out for emerging hazards, and issues of international concern.
The things that might cause us pain in the future if we don’t act now.
Fortunately for us, we are in an enviable position.
We are one of the few countries that publishes the findings of its raw milk chemical residue and contaminant monitoring programme each year.
Not only do we present our test data, we also provide the rationale for what we do, or don’t, test for.
This is just one example of the many ways in which are fostering global trust.
Meeting an “all of world” standard does come with a number of challenges.
New Zealand Food Safety, in conjunction with other parts of MPI, is constantly watching international trends and especially the shifting focus of our significant dairy markets.
This applies to all aspects of our food control system, whether it be our milk-cooling standards on farms, our chemical residue limits, or milking equipment standards.
Food safety standards don’t exist in isolation.
NZ Food Safety takes a great deal of care to make sure we have a well-integrated system that minimises duplication as much as possible, while at the same time tries to avoid gaps that might undermine strength in the system.
This means that MPI also considers:
- the controls for agricultural compounds and veterinary medicines,
- Biosecurity (Including OSPRI)
- and the National Animal Identification and Tracing Programme, NAIT.
A key component of the New Zealand system is the approach to farm dairy assessment and verification.
These activities provide independent confirmation of the standards being achieved on farms.
For overseas competent authorities, these assessment and verification activities are critical and help instill confidence in the quality of New Zealand’s milk supply.
Fit for a Better World – leaders in the Primary Industries
Dairy remains a backbone of our primary industries, accounting for three per cent of GDP. Ninety-five per cent of our dairy produce is exported, going to 130 countries.
According to the latest MPI Situation and Outlook for the Primary Industries report, dairy export revenue was almost $22 billion dollars in the year to June 2022, and is forecast to rise to just over $25 billion dollars this year.
We have been exporting dairy products for 170 years.
Ten per cent of dairy production assets are Māori-owned, and that figure is growing.
You have probably heard of Fit for a Better World, a roadmap setting out actions to accelerate the productivity, sustainability, and inclusiveness of the primary sector, so it can deliver more value for all New Zealanders.
It includes:
- Productivity – adding forty-four billion dollars in export earnings over the current decade, (2020 to 2030) by focusing on creating value.
- Sustainability – reducing biogenic methane emissions so that by 2030, they are ten per cent lower than they were in 2017, and by 2050 they’re between twenty-four per cent and forty-seven per cent lower than in 2017. Also under sustainability is restoring New Zealand’s freshwater to a healthy state within a generation.
- And then there’s inclusiveness – employing ten per cent more New Zealanders in the food and fibre sector by 2030, and 10,000 more over the next four years.
The dairy industry has a key role to play in this roadmap, and we consider you essential partners in developing each of these key pillars.
But we can’t talk about the dairy industry without discussing the environment.
Fit for a Better World embraces the indigenous Māori concept of Te Taiao, a deep relationship of respect and reciprocity with the natural world.
Through this environmental lens, we have signalled our commitment to meet the greatest challenges humanity faces
– rapidly moving to a low- carbon emissions society, restoring the health of our water, reversing the decline in biodiversity, and at the same time, feeding our people and many more people all over the world.
In addition to our Nationally Determined Contribution under the Paris Agreement, the Zero Carbon Act commits us to achieving net-zero emissions by 2050, including as well as to the biogenic methane targets I’ve already mentioned.
This world-leading separate emissions target reflects the major focus for reducing emissions from agriculture in New Zealand, which are about half our overall emissions.
How will we do this?
We’ve been working with industry groups and Māori agribusiness through the He Waka Eke Noa – Primary Sector Climate Action Partnership.
It is equipping farmers and growers to measure, manage, and reduce farm agricultural greenhouse gas emissions.
As of May 2022, sixty-one per cent of farmers in New Zealand knew their farm’s emissions profile, and twenty-one per cent have a written plan to reduce emissions.
Our first Emissions Reduction Plan, published last year, also includes a set of key actions to support farmers, growers, and Māori landowners to lower agricultural emissions, while continuing to produce high-value, high-quality food and fibres.
Market Access
Over the past few years, the resilience of both the global trading system, and the New Zealand dairy sector within it, has been tested from a number of angles.
Covid-19 put strain on New Zealand’s production systems and on global supply chains and trade.
At the same time, geopolitical shifts towards protectionism and increasingly feeling the impacts of climate change on agricultural production have further tested the resilience of primary sector trade.
The dairy sector played an integral role in New Zealand’s economic recovery from Covid-19.
New Zealand’s strong reputation as a reliable provider of safe and high-quality dairy products is at the core of New Zealand’s trading success through this time.
We saw this following the outbreak of Covid-19, and we continue to see this as importers and consumers are increasingly seeking assurances from producers around the quality, safety and environmental impact of products.
To help the dairy sector continue prospering in the face of an increasingly challenging and changeable world, we remain committed to negotiating trade rules and fostering strong relationships with our trading partners.
For example, the NZ-UK Free Trade Agreement recently came into force.
The market access it provides – for dairy and other products – is among the best we have secured in any trade deal.
Signing of the NZ-EU Free Trade Agreement is not too far away.
Once signed, we will be working hard to make sure it is ratified so it can come into force.
Since 2017, the proportion of our export goods covered by an FTA has grown from 52.5 per cent to 73.5 per cent. This shows just how important they are to growing exports.
We continue to advocate for progress in multilateral forums that will help put New Zealand diary exports on an even playing field, such as on agriculture trade reform at the World Trade Organisation.
Conclusion
Thank you for inviting me here today to talk about New Zealand’s high-quality milk products, globally trusted food standards and market position.
We can all be very proud of our efforts.
As Minister for Food Safety, let me leave you with the thought that we all have a key role to play to make sure our food system works and maintains the high level of global trust it has today.
Nōreira tēnā koutou katoa. Thank you.
