Ministry Statements & Speeches:
Tēnā koutou katoa
It is a pleasure to participate in this important event from Aotearoa-New Zealand.
In our increasingly complex and interconnected world, effective international cooperation is critical if we are to achieve our shared global aspirations.
To achieve the Sustainable Development Goals - including a world with zero hunger - we must ensure our global food systems are both more sustainable and more inclusive.
As a global community, we must take rapid and far-reaching action to combat climate change, while ensuring food security for a growing global population.
If we are to address this challenge, we must work together to tackle agricultural emissions.
For over a decade, New Zealand has worked together with international partners through the Global Research Alliance on Agricultural Greenhouse Gases to better measure food systems emissions, and to find new ways of growing more food without growing emissions.
New Zealand has also recently joined the US and UAE-led Agriculture Innovation Mission for Climate to further this objective.
I invite others to join us in this work to increase our collective capability to reduce food system emissions.
We cannot solve global food security and environmental challenges through isolationism – we must grow food where the environment supports it best and where emissions efficiency is greatest, while minimising the barriers to trade and efficient distribution.
This aspiration is undermined by government subsidies for fisheries and agriculture that lead to inefficient production, distorted trade, environmental harm, and weakened food security.
New Zealand calls on all governments to stop environmentally harmful subsidies and we encourage constructive global cooperation to progress this aim – including during this year’s World Trade Organisation Ministerial Conference.
To build effective global food systems that deliver for future generations we must also ensure they are more inclusive and empower indigenous knowledge, participation and leadership.
To this end, New Zealand is joining the Indigenous Peoples Food Systems coalition. We are committed to ensuring indigenous peoples can help lead the way forward.
For New Zealand, this means promoting the significant role of Māori in our food sectors and encouraging the growth of Māori agribusiness by removing barriers and empowering Māori leadership.