What we measure will always influence the priorities we set, writes Sean Connelly.
Report cards are a powerful way to both measure progress and to hold people to account. They effectively track change based on performance across a range of indicators. It is interesting to think about what a report card might say about our food system in New Zealand. However, they depend on an agreed upon notion of what outcomes matter or what might be considered success.
One measure for how we are doing is the agricultural productivity report. It is tied to the Ministry for Primary Industries’ goal of doubling New Zealand’s primary sector exports between 2012 and 2025 to $64 billion. It is a clear goal, where progress can be easily tracked and reported.
Between 2012 and 2016, the value of exports grew by 3.3%. To reach the 2025 target, the value of exports will have to grow by 9.5% per year between now and 2025.
One of the more recent reports highlights that horticulture and other primary foodstuffs have shown good growth towards the target, but that the key drivers of the primary sector economy, such as dairy, meat and wool sectors (that account for two thirds of exports) were not growing sufficiently.
Production will have to scale up substantially and quickly in these sectors to reach the goal. That means a combination of larger herds, more intensive use of land, more fertiliser inputs, more irrigation and more investment to drive more productivity in combination with adding value to products.
But this is only one vision of success for our food system. Is this something we want? Is it something that the New Zealand environment can handle? How much control do we have over the food system when value and values are defined by international commodity markets and the boom and bust cycles of primary industries?
Many alternatives exist with diverse visions and goals of what success looks like.
However, their diversity makes measurement of progress towards those goals difficult. Often, alternative, local, agroecological, urban, organic or permaculture food systems get measured in reference to existing industrial food systems.
The International Panel of Experts on Sustainable Food Systems identified this problem, stating that current industrial food systems will persist as long as the success of those systems are measured in terms of what they are designed to deliver and not against the many other outcomes that matter.
In other words, as long as we value production at all costs and measure success narrowly in terms of increased exports or monetary value, outcomes such as fair wages for farm workers, local food security, improved environmental outcomes, producer well-being or vibrant farming communities will always be secondary.
Researchers in Canada have responded to this challenge by bringing together existing social, economic and environmental indicators to create a pan-Canadian sustainable food system report card. Based on the pillars of food sovereignty (food for people; valuing food providers; localising food systems; local control; building knowledge and skills and working with nature), the report card explicitly makes clear how food is part of integrated and interdependent economic, social and environmental systems.
In doing so, they have provided a snapshot of the Canadian food system and created a tool to assist policy makers and practitioners to assess progress towards a more sustainable food system in a more comprehensive way. Their report can be found at fledgeresearch.ca/foodcounts/.
There are many knowledge gaps and indicators for which data does not yet exist. However, it serves as a model of the kind of activities that need to occur for food system change to be taken seriously and to shift the measurement of success away from purely financial measures. To achieve food system outcomes we want, we need to think equally about imagining, creating and measuring the food system that we want.
- Sean Connelly is a senior lecturer in the University of Otago Department of Geography. Each week in this column, one of a panel of writers addresses issues of sustainability.
