enhancing food security and physical activity for maori, pacific and ...

Enhancing Food Security and Physical Activity for Māori, Pacific and Low-income Peopleslivestock-feeding practices, and crop systems diversity. Together, they impact on dietthrough food availability, price, and nutrient quality, and thus the choices available toconsumers. These policies and practices could be utilised to promote affordable healthydiets. Traditionally, agricultural policies and production practices are considered from atrade and agriculture perspective; however, to adequately consider cost and nutritionalvalue of food, a health and equity ‘lens’ should be applied. 18Intervening at the primary production stage has potential to lead to significantimprovements in healthiness of the food supply, and some examples are provided in theliterature. In the UK, work has been undertaken looking at improving the fatty acidprofile of meat and increasing the phytochemical content of fruit. 19 Altering the fatty acidprofile of cow’s milk has been achieved through methods such as feeding cows wholecracked rapeseeds, changing the variety of grass cows eat, and providing biodiverse19 20grass pastures. Another example has been producer and government supportedresearch to reduce the fat content of pork and improve meat quality in the US. 21In New Zealand, a ‘calculator’ for potato growers to optimise fertiliser and water use hasrecently been developed 22 by scientists at Plant & Food Research. It is saving famershundreds of thousands of dollars each year, as well as benefitting the environment.Innovations such as these have potential to help reduce the cost of food for consumers,if savings are passed on through reduced prices.In contrast to the prior examples, factors impacting on primary production can also havea negative impact on healthiness and price of the food supply. In Canada the price ofmilk for processors is based on its end use, and fluid milk prices are higher than pricesfor milk used for other dairy products. This has meant butterfat is more price-competitivethan milk solids, and consumers’ purchases are shifted towards higher-fat milk productssuch as ice cream. 23 There are also restrictions on the blending of dairy and non-dairyproducts, which restricts use of butter blend margarines which are lower in saturated fat.Thus, agricultural policy made in the absence of health considerations can adverselyimpact nutrition-related health outcomes, creating price incentives for less healthyproducts.Traill 19 has noted that changes in primary production are more likely to be acceptable toconsumers if they are achieved through traditional animal husbandry or agriculturetechniques rather than genetic modification or novel food processing techniques. It isnoted that it may require a substantial shift in primary production focus to consider healthand nutrition alongside yield. Globally, this is most likely to happen in parallel with thegrowing focus on climate change and sustainable agricultural practices. Thus, initiativesto influence nutritional value and cost of food at primary production level stand mostchance of success if they are pitched as natural partners to these other initiatives thathave substantial public and political support.Making changes to improve the food supply at the primary production level requiressignificant investment in research and development. While traditionally research focuseson economic, production or efficiency factors, health also needs to be a consideration.Such research needs to be targeted at factors that would provide the most healthbenefits to the New Zealand population, such as reducing saturated fat and increasingfruit and vegetable intake (eg, by developing vegetable varieties that appeal to children,are more cost-effective to produce, or which overcome some of the barriers toconsumption). A key priority would be that any changes made in primary production do107