Food For Thought - Creating Resilient Food Systems

Queenstown: Tuesday 25 October 5.30pm - 7.30pm, Te Atamira 

Wānaka: Friday 28 October 5.30pm - 7.30pm, Rippon Hall

Gain insight into the real issues facing our global food system with this conversation facilitated by Julia Blackford, and featuring speakers Jason Bradford, Jade Gray and Ailsa Cain. You’ll hear about food resilience through multiple lenses, from the rise of localism, to Aotearoa's place in the global food system, to what we can learn from matauranga Māori.

Globalisation, climate change, biodiversity loss and political tensions are placing increased pressure on our food system. We are a land of producers, we see ourselves living in a world of plenty, however we have one of the highest food costs in the world, and it is on the increase. Revenue from our exports help fund the schools, roads and hospitals. However malnourishment is rife. A high proportion of our children are living without enough healthy, affordable food and we have one of the highest rates of adult obesity in the OECD. Our waterways are highly polluted from nutrient runoff, our soils are being stripped of the diversity required to produce crops, and a large percentage of our greenhouse gas emissions comes from our agricultural systems. These all point to the fact that our food system is no longer living up to our aspirations as a nation.

On the global front, the Ukraine conflict, global inflation and potential global economic downturn are adding to stresses on our food system here in Aotearoa and questions around our role in the global food system.

The system we have developed to grow our food and feed ourselves over the last 100 years has been based on excessive use of hydrocarbons. This dense energy source will not be affordable or available in the near future and we will need to return to more traditional and energy efficient methods of agriculture - how do we ensure we can cope with this?

What is a Rethink Kōrero? Rethink Kõrero are our big conversations of the week. We invite you to stay after the event to network and connect with your fellow Wao community. Locally made and sourced nibbles are included as well, doesn’t get much better than that? Check out other Rethink Kōrero happening during the week here.

This event is also available to view online as part of our online ticket. Check out the online ticket to get access to all live-streamed and recorded events at the Wao Summit 2022. All events on the online programme are available to view live, and up to 1-month post event.

Check out our other Rethink Kōrero/Conversations:

• Drawdown: Solving the Climate Crisis with Paul Hawken
• Regenerate 2030 With Damon Gameau
• Living Within our Limits: Green Growth vs Degrowth

Watch this video to find out more about our Kōreros: 

The Wao Summit is a six day annual event held in the Southern Lakes (Wānaka and Queenstown). Its aim is to inspire, educate and enable our transition as a community and nation to a healthy, thriving, diverse, low carbon community. This event is part of the Wao Summit 2022, check out the full programme here.

wao.co.nz