Farmers are quietly solving one of our biggest problems
OPINION: As food insecurity deepens across New Zealand, a powerful solution is quietly unfolding in our rural communities - and it starts at the farm gate.
They say that not only has demand increased, but the clientele has changed, with previous donors now coming through their doors in need of assistance.
Social services manager Zucchi Leonard says food insecurity in communities is changing with an increase in the number of double income earners struggling to afford food after paying bills, interest rates, mortgage payments, and insurance.
“For the last five months, we’ve seen a massive increase in the number of new clients compared to this time last year and that’s consistent month-on-month,” Leonard says.
She says these new people requiring assistance are the ‘working poor’ and there has been a definitive increase.
“For some families, they’ve actually donated food to the City Mission in previous years, but now they’re having to come in and ask for help,” she explains.
Leonard says that, now, it isn’t just the most vulnerable in the community who are in need of food support and any judgement or prejudice needs to be thrown out the window.
“This could be the teacher that’s teaching your kids or grandkids at the local school, who’s married to the mechanic that’s fixing your car,” she says. “They’re both earning but not massively, they’ve got mortgages and increasing interest rates and they’re trying their best to get ahead but they’ve had bills come in and can’t afford food.”
When people come in and ask for food, they’re at a crisis point and it’s a huge step, she says.
“It’s usually the adults who will cut back on food and they make sure that they have food for the children,” she says.
“When they come to us, it means they don’t have enough for their children either and they’re at crisis point wondering how they’re going to support their family and keep feeding their kids,” she says.
Leonard says meat is one of the hardest things for the City Mission to source so the assistance provided by Meat The Need is vital.
“Meat proteins are the hardest things for us to source, and they are expensive – so having that delivery of Meat the Need once a month is crucial to what we do and we’re so incredibly grateful to be able to have it,” she says.
However, she says that this year the stock isn’t stretching far enough simply because of the increase in the number of people coming through the City Mission’s doors.
Additionally, she says, there isn’t the budget to spend on additional meat because the money has been allocated elsewhere and meat is proving an expensive item to include in the food parcels they provide.
Her message to farmers as Meat the Need heads into its fundraising drive, The Big Feed live rural telethon is to donate produce if you can.
“Please donate a beast because meat is so important for us to provide for our clients who can do so much with mince, it’s a fantastic product.”
“The more people right across the country who can get on board and donate meat and milk, the better off our communities are going to be,” she concludes.
The Big Feed rural telethon will take place on 14 December between 6am and 8pm and will be hosted by former professional boxer Dave Letele, broadcaster and writer Matt Chisholm, and Federated Farmers president and Meat the Need co-founder Wayne Langford.
