National Food Strategy

1. Government financing (re)education for anyone who wants to learn regenerative agriculture practices and renewable energy production;

2. government grants, managed via local councils, toward funding community-owned means of production (e.g. mills);

3. Push for a transition back to land tax rather than capital tax (see links in this twitter thread);

4. 'speculative' land donated to, or otherwise acquired by, community land trusts (#3 would lay a foundation for this as one could no longer make a profit off treating land as a commodity).

Great list Naomi, thank you!

Partnerships between civil society and central and local government.

• i.e. how can central and local government support the empowerment of civil society and the building and maintenance of local user / participant governed rural and urban commons.

Local markets first. An acknowledgment that we need to transcend our roots in the birth of industrial agriculture and globalised trade.

Consultation with iwi to help support marae as food resilience hubs.

Public urban land (sports fields et al) opend up to integrate urban agriculture - both community gardens and market gardens.

Subsidies for transitions to regenerative practice.

Support for agroforestry / silvopasture / food forest agriculture

support for research into the above

A strategy to incentivise NZ grown staples - wheat, rice, legumes

With @Naomi Smith on Land Value Tax - everybody should failiarise themselves with this. This form of taxation can be applied to any monopoly good with an artificially restricted supply - patents, copyright et al. It means we can stop taxing people's labor and productivity and instead disincentivise the maintenance of artificial scarcities

community land trusts enabling access to land for young small scale farmers. An example

Farmers markets prioritised as essential service - an action plan that enables markets to keep trading safely in a crisis.

Re-home our fishing priorities. Re-assesment of quota management system to enable artisanal inshore fishers to have access to and viability in the local market. i.e. acknowledge our oceans as a commons

The question is; What is resilience? I would propose to include distributed, diverse, small, close, knowledgeable, local. Local knowledge. Local solutions. Local capacity. Of course with the capacity to network globally. "what is heavy is local, what is light is global".

My fear is that the state will see a need for resilience but understand it to be technocratic with centralised control and knowledge. History has a few lessons here re 'feeding the world'

I also believe that before strategies should come agreed principles. Especially if people are proposing to speak to central or local government on behalf of others.

A couple of quotes from Blain Snipstal

“We can produce all the great food in the world, but if we’re not working to transform the very nature of the relations of power in the food system, having good food will be null and void.”

"agroecology without democracy is just a technology"

Thanks Aaron, yes have read about land trusts in the USA as well.

Ok, I went back in there after having my hands in the compost and made some more comments.

Nothing like compost for idea fermentation! And not proposing to speak on behalf of anyone. Just seeding ideas in places that may, until recently, have been infertile ground.

Of course. That comment applies to anybody speaking to officialdom and is really intended to encourage some agreement on principles which was the desired outcome of forming this group and which would enable people to do exactly that with a base of support around them.

Absolutely @Aaron McLean ! The "how" will change, and when it does, us commoners/community members need a "why" to return to for guidance. Likewise, if the "how" is corrupted or co-opted, the values hold the power to re-align and even improve the implementation.

I recommend this short video, part of an awesome series about ownership economies.

That was wonderful, thanks for sharing it! It was certainly reflective of how things emerged after the Canterbury Earthquakes. There was always a moment of 'OMG, we're going to have to do this ourselves' when it came to food security. And I agree there is no one single pathway or "how", and I'm not sure this group needs to be that. But having a place to be reminded and contribute to the "why" is powerful indeed for me. 🙏

Hey everyone, so it turns out that I made a Loomio novice mistake. I totally thought that I posted something a month ago. Turns out, it didn't post! So, am posting again. Sorry for the lag and I hope that you're all doing well.

LANDING ON A CLEAR, UNIFIED STRATEGY: What if NZ were to all get behind a shared vision for what’s going to sustain us both now and into the future? Regenerative? Organic? Regenerative organic? Or, a mix of models? We’ve got some massive headwinds coming, so what’s the strategy that’s going to win?

RESOURCING EXISTING FARMERS TO MOVE ON THIS STRATEGY: A lot of farmers I know, know the environmental, cultural and social value of regenerative farming. It’s just that current economic realities are a HUGE barrier. It would be great if there was some thinking around HOW we could transition existing farmers to a more regenerative practice. So, all the ‘carrot’ policy stuff like grants, subsidies and funding. 

RESOURCING NEW FARMERS: How do we also help new farmers get in and get growing? Can we imagine new pathways to farm ownership?

:)