Our food system is fatally flawed, and it's time for a re-think, according to EatNZ chief executive and Food Farm owner Angela Gill-Clifford.

"I was listening to a podcast where an expert said the system was going to break.

"The retort to that was the system is already broken."

Food insecurity is one indicator of that broken system.

In New Zealand, a 2020/2021 health survey showed that 14.9% of children lived in households where food runs out "sometimes" or "often", usually because of financial hardship.

"Good, healthy food has got really expensive for most families, and people have to work hard to afford it."

While we look back at critical times in New Zealand's history, such as the war era or the depression, Kiwis became adept at growing and preserving their own food; times are much different now.

There is not a simple answer when the problem is complex.

Those experiencing poverty are often living in rental properties with an average tenancy agreement of 15 months, making it tricky to establish gardens long-term.

Angela said time is also an issue when people work long hours to make ends meet.

"Because people are working so hard, they don't have the time to grow food.

"So how do we reimagine that system?"

Angela runs The Food Farm, a six-hectare block of land in North Canterbury that she has developed with her husband Nick.

The couple purchased the property twenty years ago after they moved to North Canterbury from South Australia, where they were involved in the wine industry.

"I spent my formative years in politics, which drove me to drink. So wine seemed an appropriate outcome of that," Angela jokes.

Nick accepted a job setting up what is now one of North Canterbury's most successful and highly regarded vineyards, Greystone, while they developed the Food Farm based on the permaculture principles they had learned in Australia.

"We knew that we wanted a place to grow our own food."

The property has evolved from a market garden, where the Clifford's sold produce at farmers' markets, to what is now an educational tool with workshops teaching people how to grow their own food.

"The farm has expanded and contracted with our lives."

Angela believes that we can learn lessons from nature when it comes to fixing our food system.

"Nothing stands alone; if it does, it seldom thrives."

Community gardens, collaboration and sharing between small-scale food producers could make healthy food more accessible for New Zealanders.

"We need community sufficiency, not self-sufficiency."

Angela believes lifestyle blocks provide a solution, and with education, small-scale farmers could provide affordable food for communities.

"New Zealand is full of small farms, and very few of them are about feeding people, but despite this, they sit on some of the best soil on the periphery of our towns and cities."

On a larger scale, Angela said land use change, particularly fertile land that had been used for food production being converted to forestry, is "a concern."

"If we are going to have trees on a landscape, they should be incorporated in a clever and strategic way."

Angela sites agroforestry, where trees and shrubs are integrated into pasture-based farming practices.

"Our favourite quote here is from Charles Massey, who said, 'I didn't hear the question, but the answer is diversity.'

"So whether it's forestry or solar farming, my answer will be diversity."

The Food Farm contains two different 'food forests', an edible forest garden planted in such a way as to create an organically grown ecosystem using permaculture.

"Permaculture is basically a design system.

"It's not just a way of gardening; it's a way of systems thinking."

Angela's passion for food led her to be one of the founders and the chief executive of EatNZ, a not-for-profit food collective that sits across the food system in its tenth year.

Members include farmers, fishermen, academics, and those at the front line of food poverty, food waste, hospitality, and tourism.

"The purpose of EatNZ is to reconnect people with where their food comes from."

As well as supporting and celebrating a connected food system, the organisation has been lobbying, so far unsuccessfully, for the government to adopt a national food strategy.

Angela's work with EatNZ saw her receive the Food Champion award in 2022 at the Arable Awards in Christchurch.

"I like Arable Farmers because they feel really connected to what they grow, but there is a big mismatch because what they grow has been totally commodified."

Angela has been working with the Foundation for Arable Research (FAR) to amplify the New Zealand Grain story.

"The most recent step is that we are working on a New Zealand grains mark.

"At the moment there is a lot of obscurity around where our grains come from."

By Claire Inkson