‘Support vital' to help ventures grow

It's important to ensure Maori agribusiness is supported to the next level, says Associate Minister of Agriculture Meka Whaitiri.

Whaitiri spoke while hosting the Celebrating Maori Farming Excellence event at the Fieldays. She said it was estimated Maori owned $13 billion in primary sector assets and Maori businesses exported $750 million in goods last year.

"In its 54th year, I suspect this is the first time that we've carved out an event that actually acknowledged Maori farming excellence," she said. "Whenua Maori has huge potential for sustainable growth and development." She told the inaugural gathering of Maori dairy, sheep, horticulturists and agri-business leaders that it was important to ensure the Government could support Maori agribusinesses to move to the next level.

"Maori enterprises account for 40per cent of forestry, 30 per cent of all beef and lamb production and Maori horticulture has grown by an impressive 300 per cent in 12 years," she said. "Maori contribute a significant amount to the overall economy of Aotearoa New Zealand, which underpins the wellbeing for us all."

As the minister responsible for Maori agribusiness, she said, the standout factors she noticed time after time were "their commitment to a social, economic and sustainably-centred ethos, intergenerational management and the drive to innovate".

The Government committed $34.5m over four years to expand MPI's Maori agribusiness services to improve the capability of Maori landblocks and address unmet demands for support. The event was used to launch an MPI plan to support growth in the Maori food and fibre sector, which it says is at the forefront of growth.

The Maori asset base is worth $68.7b and grew by 61 per cent from 2013 to 2018. MPI reports nearly a third of Maori businesses are in the food and fibre sector - 3864 in total - with only 40 per cent being medium or large.

An emerging class of Maori agribusinesses were becoming known nationally for environmental leadership, social responsibility, innovation and leadership, Whaitiri said.

Complex land ownership and governance structures, however, presented challenges. Among other speakers at the event was Tina Ngatai of the Maori Agribusiness Sheep Milk Collective, which is made up of 20 Maori land trusts and incorporations that own more than 24,000ha.

"To get 20 in the collective to hold hands and moving together was an undertaking," she said.

Asked why Maori agribusinesses should get Government support on their goals, she said Maori were locked into their land and as such had a unique relationship to it and a pivotal role ahead.

"The difference for us is we can't sell our whenua and many of our people are in such poor states, we just have to step it up for the next generation.

"The land blocks I'm on, a lot of us give contributions to our people every year and they rely on us to do it. We can't compromise that financial contribution we make to our people because without it, some of them would be in serious financial difficulty.

"We had four dairy farms and we said what are we going to do, we can't keep polluting our lakes. "We were part of the polluting problem with all the nitrates running into our lakes. We wouldn't wait to be told what to do, we had to grab that wero, that challenge, and six years ago decided our best option was to go into dairy sheep."

The collective's goal is to have multiple farms milking 25,000 sheep and potential to employ more than 100 people by 2030.