Angela is the founder and chief executive of Eat New Zealand, and owns the Food Farm, at Broomfield, with her husband Nick Gill.
She says it was ‘‘pretty humbling’’ to receive her award in front of more than 400 arable farmers, scientists and industry leaders at the new convention centre, Te Pae, last week.
She hopes her award will bring recognition to the work being done at Eat New Zealand to establish a local grain economy.
‘‘The work we are doing is about better connecting people to where their food comes from,’’ she says.
‘‘It is about ensuring we have food security for so many of our daily staples.
‘‘ Imagine life without bread or pasta or hummus or biscuits or pies or cooking oil or breakfast cereal or even beer.
‘‘We can easily grow all these things from local ingredients if we connect the people growing them with those eating them.
‘‘The same is true for everything else we find on our plate here in North Canterbury,’’ she says.
She also hopes her success at the awards will highlight the high quality of New Zealand›grown food and encourage more people tobuy produce grown locally in their neighbourhood.
‘‘If we can just invest a little bit of our time seeking out our local food, whether that is buying it from a local market, an independent retailer, a farm stall, or growing our own, we will ensure it is there for the future,’’ she says.
‘‘If we want strong, inclusive, resilient communities then food can be a really good way of building them, and these local solutions create great environmental outcomes as well, reducing emissions and increasing biodiversity.’’
She was humbled to be considered for the award, alongside some ‘‘wonderful arable farmers’’. ‘‘We often don’t think about the amount of grains that we eat; from bread to pasta, biscuits to hummus, quinoa to pies. ‘‘We are working on a Local Grain Economy so we can ensure these things don’t disappear as global disruptions continue.’’
-By Shelley Topp