A few people have asked what I actually think the fix is. Humbly, let me put it plainly.
It is not more funding. The $29.5 million is the evidence.
It is not artificial intelligence. That might shave hours off a task that takes eight to fifteen thousand of them.
It is not waiting for a new Biosecurity Act. Industry has been waiting nearly twenty years already.
The only thing that changes the trajectory is collaboration. Real collaboration, with the people who use the system, before the decisions are made rather than after.
And I want to head off the objection I know is coming, because it is the one that has killed this idea every time it has been raised.
Collaboration is not sharing intellectual property.
Nobody is asking MPI to hand anything over. Nobody in industry is offering up their varieties, their breeding programmes, or their commercial dossiers.
What industry holds is something different. Crop-specific pest knowledge sitting with people who have grown that crop for thirty years. Agronomy. Practical experience of offshore facilities and what actually works inside them. Knowledge of which pathways matter commercially and which genuinely are dead. Sight of risk assessments already completed by regulators we have every reason to trust.
That is not intellectual property. That is capability sitting outside the building, unused, while a queue that would take generations to clear sits inside it.
The submitters said this two years ago, and in almost these words. A radical new approach to import health standard development, with early collaboration with industry, is the number one priority. Group genera by risk profile instead of grinding through them one at a time. Cooperate on risk assessment with industry crop specialists and Crown Research Institutes. Look at Australia, which is reviewing import conditions right now for banana, pipfruit, mango, hazelnut, pomegranate, sugarcane and sweet potato.
Every one of those is a crop we have closed.
Biosecurity New Zealand has also said, on the record, that no commercially sensitive information was required in its workshops. So the confidentiality argument does not hold either.
This is not about lowering the standard. It is about who is allowed to help meet it.
We have a target of twelve billion dollars in horticultural exports by 2035, and a system that cannot open a door inside a generation. Both cannot be true at once.
Future-proofing New Zealand's food and fibre sector, and NZ Inc with it, will not be done by one agency working alone behind a wall. It never was going to be.
Another clear, fact-exposing and much-needed hard-hitting article Fenton.
You have once again done an excellent job of exposing the core issues behind what, on the surface, looked like a bottleneck — and, importantly, identifying practical solutions to start to address what has become an archaic, gradual decline and erosion of our multigenerational growing industry.
Putting politics aside, surely there are now enough people, both within and outside the growing community, reading and understanding this information to recognise that something has to change, and change quickly.
The solutions you outline are not beyond the people who work within these systems, and if the people on the ground are part of the solutions their combined knowledge could turn this around. It's one thing having a target of 12 billion dollars in horticultural exports by 2035, however there needs to be a clear HOW and MEASURES along the way so assessments can be made and progress can be tracked?
New Zealand has built an incredibly successful horticultural industry over generations. We should not allow bureaucracy, outdated systems and institutional inertia to slowly dismantle it.
There is still time to turn this around — but we need to action before it is really TOO LATE.
Mandy, HUGE, thank you. You have been reading and pushing on these pieces for a while now, and the fact that you are not writing from inside the growing industry makes your point land harder, not softer.
The HOW and the MEASURES are the sharpest thing anyone has said about this.
A target without a measure is a wish. Twelve billion by 2035 gets repeated often. Nobody has published how many closed pathways reopen each year to get there, or what happens if none do.
That is exactly where the courage sits. A measure is how you agree to be held to account, and nobody publishes a number they might miss. That is exactly where the courage sits.
You are right that the answers are not beyond the people inside these systems. They are not short of capability. What is missing is someone senior enough willing to say out loud that the current design cannot deliver, and then publish the measure that would prove it either way.
New Zealand did build this over generations. It will not be dismantled by a decision. Nothing this big ever is. It goes the way it is going now, one pathway at a time, while everyone stays polite.
Thanks Fenton, a great explanation of what's broken in the system. Perhaps the Minister needs to focus on system architecture and capability? Oh that's right the Coalition Government wants a smaller public sector, 🤔 oh dear!
Hi Fenton, The intellectual capacity to produce an article of this nature is something that is light years beyond my capability. However it was written in such a way that a relative idiot such as myself can understand it. My hope is that enough people within our systems and structures also 1) Read it. 2) Can understand it. 3) Are incentivized/motivated to ACT upon it. Sadly, I'm not optimistic about mass uptake of point 3. But keep fighting the fight.
A few people have asked what I actually think the fix is. Humbly, let me put it plainly.
It is not more funding. The $29.5 million is the evidence.
It is not artificial intelligence. That might shave hours off a task that takes eight to fifteen thousand of them.
It is not waiting for a new Biosecurity Act. Industry has been waiting nearly twenty years already.
The only thing that changes the trajectory is collaboration. Real collaboration, with the people who use the system, before the decisions are made rather than after.
And I want to head off the objection I know is coming, because it is the one that has killed this idea every time it has been raised.
Collaboration is not sharing intellectual property.
Nobody is asking MPI to hand anything over. Nobody in industry is offering up their varieties, their breeding programmes, or their commercial dossiers.
What industry holds is something different. Crop-specific pest knowledge sitting with people who have grown that crop for thirty years. Agronomy. Practical experience of offshore facilities and what actually works inside them. Knowledge of which pathways matter commercially and which genuinely are dead. Sight of risk assessments already completed by regulators we have every reason to trust.
That is not intellectual property. That is capability sitting outside the building, unused, while a queue that would take generations to clear sits inside it.
The submitters said this two years ago, and in almost these words. A radical new approach to import health standard development, with early collaboration with industry, is the number one priority. Group genera by risk profile instead of grinding through them one at a time. Cooperate on risk assessment with industry crop specialists and Crown Research Institutes. Look at Australia, which is reviewing import conditions right now for banana, pipfruit, mango, hazelnut, pomegranate, sugarcane and sweet potato.
Every one of those is a crop we have closed.
Biosecurity New Zealand has also said, on the record, that no commercially sensitive information was required in its workshops. So the confidentiality argument does not hold either.
This is not about lowering the standard. It is about who is allowed to help meet it.
We have a target of twelve billion dollars in horticultural exports by 2035, and a system that cannot open a door inside a generation. Both cannot be true at once.
Future-proofing New Zealand's food and fibre sector, and NZ Inc with it, will not be done by one agency working alone behind a wall. It never was going to be.
Let the people who use the system help build it.
🌻
Another clear, fact-exposing and much-needed hard-hitting article Fenton.
You have once again done an excellent job of exposing the core issues behind what, on the surface, looked like a bottleneck — and, importantly, identifying practical solutions to start to address what has become an archaic, gradual decline and erosion of our multigenerational growing industry.
Putting politics aside, surely there are now enough people, both within and outside the growing community, reading and understanding this information to recognise that something has to change, and change quickly.
The solutions you outline are not beyond the people who work within these systems, and if the people on the ground are part of the solutions their combined knowledge could turn this around. It's one thing having a target of 12 billion dollars in horticultural exports by 2035, however there needs to be a clear HOW and MEASURES along the way so assessments can be made and progress can be tracked?
New Zealand has built an incredibly successful horticultural industry over generations. We should not allow bureaucracy, outdated systems and institutional inertia to slowly dismantle it.
There is still time to turn this around — but we need to action before it is really TOO LATE.
Mandy, HUGE, thank you. You have been reading and pushing on these pieces for a while now, and the fact that you are not writing from inside the growing industry makes your point land harder, not softer.
The HOW and the MEASURES are the sharpest thing anyone has said about this.
A target without a measure is a wish. Twelve billion by 2035 gets repeated often. Nobody has published how many closed pathways reopen each year to get there, or what happens if none do.
That is exactly where the courage sits. A measure is how you agree to be held to account, and nobody publishes a number they might miss. That is exactly where the courage sits.
You are right that the answers are not beyond the people inside these systems. They are not short of capability. What is missing is someone senior enough willing to say out loud that the current design cannot deliver, and then publish the measure that would prove it either way.
New Zealand did build this over generations. It will not be dismantled by a decision. Nothing this big ever is. It goes the way it is going now, one pathway at a time, while everyone stays polite.
There is still time. Not a lot.
🌻
Thanks Fenton, a great explanation of what's broken in the system. Perhaps the Minister needs to focus on system architecture and capability? Oh that's right the Coalition Government wants a smaller public sector, 🤔 oh dear!
Thank you David, guess if I had a magic power (I clearly don't), I would wish for courageous leadership to lift its head above the parapet 🌻
Hi Fenton, The intellectual capacity to produce an article of this nature is something that is light years beyond my capability. However it was written in such a way that a relative idiot such as myself can understand it. My hope is that enough people within our systems and structures also 1) Read it. 2) Can understand it. 3) Are incentivized/motivated to ACT upon it. Sadly, I'm not optimistic about mass uptake of point 3. But keep fighting the fight.