Northland Food Policy Network Inaugural MeetingHe Kai Ora Tonu

2.00 p.m. 27 May 2017 at The Orchard, Northland Inc

Attendance

From left: Dr Melissa Gilbert-Smith, Clive McKegg, Daniela Johnson, David Colley, Edith Bennett,

George Lavich, Dr Rita Shelley, Martin Edinborough, Martin Knoche, Sharon Edinborough, Ross Clark,

Bew Trowbridge, Peter Bruce-Iri, Dr Benjamin Pittman, Ian Sturt, Joseph Stuart.

Dr Benjamin Pittman opened the meeting with karakia.

Why?Meeting facilitator, Saba Issa led a round of introductions and then invited Melissa Gilbert-Smith to

talk about why we are here to support a food policy network. Paired discussion followed generating

this feedback.

These are clustered into five areas of focus.

Community based projects, facilitation at the local level

Support for local growers, succession planning, agriculture and horticulture training

Awareness and education, consumer awareness, creating food awareness, communication,

education at all levels

Policy, Creating and fighting legislation, lobbying and action, political action, bottom up

action/advocacy, collectively influencing change, political advocacy

The intention “advocacy to influence policy” to encapsulate activity was tabled by Saba and Peter.

How?The structure and of the food policy network was briefly outlined by Peter and Saba. Saba

emphasised that there is no need to finalise any of this yet.

National network The national network was initiated this week. So far people from Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch,

Dunedin City Councils, Healthy Families from the Bay of Plenty and Waitakere and Northland are

engaged. Peter mentioned the possibility of securing funding for a salaried/contracted person from a

range of Northland organisations and for the national network to secure funding for a person based

at Wellington.

NameLoomio has been used to help determine a name. So far, Northland Food Policy Network is favoured.

Dr Pittman translated the Māori name, He Kai Ora Tonu, as roughly, vital, living, growing, healthy

food in perpetuity. With ora means at once living, life, health with an inference of sustainability.

StructurePeter proposed a structure based on activity happening in a few policy areas. Meeting facilitation

responsibility would rotate through these policy groups. There would also be a co-ordinating group

to support co-ordination and administration.

In the discussion that followed the concept was generally supported, but the sentiment emerged

that the policy areas would be dynamic. Some would want to support projects emerging from policy

areas, but not necessarily attach themselves to an single area.

ValuesWe will need a mission statement and our values articulated as the network becomes more

formalised. It was felt that we had made good progress shaping those up.

What?Collectively, we identified three policy areas to initially focus on.

The general election

Supporting growers

Sugar

Sub groups can be created in Loomio to enable virtual meetings.

1. The general electionBecause the election is in in four months, this is a priority and will be the focus of the next meeting.

The sub-group will harvest questions to be posed to all Northland electoral candidates (for example

“Would you support a sugar tax?” The group will work on the best way to get responses from the

candidate and to disseminate their responses.

2. Supporting growers

This group developed a range of ideas. A priority is the advent of food safety plans in March 2018.

3. SugarThis group also developed a range of ideas including working with health organisations to promote

healthy alternatives for sugary products, work to reduce the availability of sugary products in schools

and other organisations including vending machines.

Next meetingSaturday 24 June at The Orchard (time to be finalised).clive