New Zealand humanitarian aid for Gaza worth up to $29 million is being blocked by Israel on the border of the besieged enclave, says the Palestine Solidarity Network Aotearoa.

PSNA co-chair John Minto said in a statement today that this aid was loaded on some of the 9000 aid trucks sitting ready on the border with Gaza to try to lift the Israeli created famine.

Israel cut off all food, medicine, fuel, and nearly all water supplies entering Gaza three months ago and the Gaza Health Ministry reports that the Palestinian death toll has now topped 54,000 since the war on the enclave began.

• READ MORE: Israel’s attacks on Gaza have killed over 54,000 since start of war
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New Zealand’s Foreign Minister Winston Peters said last week that the humanitarian situation in Gaza was “simply intolerable”.

Minto said that since then — while Israel had refused to allow more than a trickle of aid into Gaza, and escalated its already horrific military onslaught — the only public statement by Peters had been to offer condolences for the shooting of two Israeli diplomats in Washington.

“Our government’s selective indifference to mass murder is making all of us complicit,” Minto said.

Famine has begun and the UN has cited 14,000 babies are at imminent risk of starving to death.

UN officials estimate 600 truckloads of aid a day are needed to feed the people in Gaza.

Gaza’s own local food production has been destroyed by Israel.

Some 70 percent of Gaza is already occupied by Israel or under Israeli evacuation orders.

NZ ‘must take lead again’
Minto said New Zealand had taken a lead in the past and must do so again.

“Our government should be advocating internationally for the enforcement of a protective no-fly zone over Gaza, and a multinational military protection for aid convoys so they can go into Gaza whether Israel approves them or not,” he said.

“At home we should be sending Israel an equally clear message. We must send the Israeli ambassador packing and immediately sanction Israel by ending all trade and other links.

“As each day passes with no concrete action from New Zealand, our government is linking us with the most massive and ongoing war crime of the 21st century.

“Our government will never live down it’s complicity but might salvage some credibility by acting now.”

A West Papuan international student in Aotearoa New Zealand has devoted hundreds of hours to a non-profit organisation and opened a door to a new career.

Arnold Yoman, 19, came to New Zealand in 2019 from the Papuan provincial capital Jayapura on an Indonesian government scholarship and has been studying at Awatapu College in Palmerston North.

The school’s international department had a programme in Manawatū to get students involved in business during their first summer separated from overseas friends and family.

• READ MORE: Papuan scholarship students in New Zealand

Yoman — a younger son of Reverend Socratez Yoman, president of the Fellowship of Baptist Churches in West Papua, who visited New Zealand in 2016 — started volunteering at Wholegrain Organics when he could not go home because of covid-19 border closures.

“I was welcomed to volunteer by the Wholegrain Organics farm and cafe and liked it so much that I asked to stay on after the holidays were over,” he said.

He volunteered at Wholegrain Organics’ farm during the school holidays and once it became obvious he had a passion and a knack for horticulture, the school started working with Wholegrain Organics so he could continue his work and get National Certificate of Educational Achievement (NCEA) credits.

Yoman’s work is through Wholegrain Organics’ hands-on food programme, where he plants, maintains and harvests organic produce for the community.

500 hours by the end
He will have completed more than 500 hours by the end of his voluntary work.

He is in his final year of school and wants to stay in New Zealand to study horticulture at Lincoln University in Canterbury next year.

Wholegrain Organics’ hands-on food programme has been running since 2015, a non-profit scheme working with young people in community programmes like a regenerative vegetable farm and a training kitchen and deli.

The programme’s food technology, nutrition and horticulture educator Gosia Wiatr said they loved having young people involved because it gave them access to quality and inclusive learning opportunities.

“Arnold’s work ethic has been an encouragement for other young people in the programme.

“International students have always been a great part of our programme, so we wanted to support the students who were separated from their families over the holidays.

“We’ve been happy about their success stories, with students finding new career paths, improving their English and enriching their time in New Zealand as a result.”

Republished with permission from Stuff.

Advocates warn that the the involvement of the Indonesian military (TNI) in a food estate programme initiated by the government last year may enable potential human rights violations.

“Military deployment will be followed by the act of securing land grabbing, for example,” said rights NGO Imparsial director Gufron Mabruri in an online discussion this week.

“There is the potential for human rights violations to occur, especially if the community resists and confronts the security forces.”

• READ MORE: Other West Papua reports

Such potential for human rights violations, Mabruri said, was confirmed by the absence of any accountable mechanism, Mabruri said.

The TNI has its own military court to prosecute members suspected of committing crimes.

However, the military court is closed to the public and is seen as a shield for impunity in many cases.

‘Separatist’ stigma a problem
Mabruri also warned that the stigma of Papuans as alleged “separatists” should be taken into consideration when putting the national soldiers on civil programmes.

“Moreover, armed groups in Papua are now labeled as terrorist organisations. This will make things escalate quickly when there is a conflict between the TNI and the community,” he said.

He suggested President Joko Widodo and the House of Representatives evaluate all military engagement practices in various sectors because it would weaken civil institutions.

Indonesian Institute of Sciences (LIPI) researcher M. Haripin also said that the involvement of the military in the food estate project was very problematic, as seen in past involvement.

“Some might think that this is too presumptuous because the military situation has changed. However, for me even now, the military is still very problematic and we cannot put aside our past history and our present concerns,” Haripin said.

Indeed, ever since it was launched last year until now, the food estate programme has been under heavy criticism, especially with the involvement of the military in its implementation.

“There is the risk of creating ‘khaki capital’, or the political economy of the military, in the TNI-supported food estate,” he said.

“Corporations earn profits while soldiers ensure that everything goes according to plan,” he said.

Arjuna Pademme is a Tabloid Jubi reporter. Republished with permission.

People are going hungry even though New Zealand produces enough food to feed 40 million — and it is spurring calls for the country to “feed the five million first”.

Almost 40 percent of New Zealand households experience food insecurity, while 19 percent of children live in households that experience food insecurity.

Poverty researcher Dr Rebekah Graham said while working on her thesis on food insecurity, she interviewed a woman who walked for 90 minutes each day to get a free community meal.

“That was her only meal of the day. It was all she was eating.”

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Others went without to make sure their children had food, or were constantly trying to stretch food to make more meals from it, she said.

Dr Graham said the people she interviewed had a grim acceptance that this was normal.

“They would have loved high quality meat and they would have loved to have regular fresh fruits and veggies.”

Moderate food insecurity
About 33 percent of New Zealand households say they face moderate food insecurity, experiencing uncertainty about whether they’ll have enough food, or choosing cheaper, often nutritionally poor items.

About 7 percent of households experience low food security, meaning they run out of food and go without for a day or more.

For a long time it was mostly beneficiaries who experienced food insecurity but that had changed, Dr Graham said.

“You’ve got families on minimum wage, who are paying market rent, who have to live in the city, because that is where their job is. Some of these people are essential workers, so you need them in a city if you want your city to function. And when the cost of living keeps rising but your wages don’t, and when rent skyrockets, the food budget gets capped.”

New Zealand produces enough food to feed 40 million people, exporting much of it, including $16 billion worth of dairy, $3.7bn worth of beef and $3.9bn worth of sheep meat a year.

Export prices often push up prices charged for food in New Zealand.

NZ fruit, vegetables cheaper in Britain
Auckland University of Technology emeritus professor of nutrition Dr Elaine Rush said she had seen New Zealand fruit and vegetables sold cheaper in Britain than they were here.

Dr Rush has matched data on food and beverage exports and imports to nutritional needs and said what she found was eye-opening.

She said we are exporting high nutrient proteins and fat, and importing foods and these aren’t great from a nutrition stand-point, like carbohydrates and sugars.

As a result, we are fat, famished or starved in a land of plenty, she said.

In a paper on the topic she suggests: “A country that can produce more than enough high-quality food should feed its own first.”

After New Zealanders had enough good quality food, “then we can actually start thinking about looking after the rest of the world as well, because the trickle down effect hasn’t been working has it?

“All this money we get from these exports doesn’t seem to be making it easier for those at the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder,” she said.

Food production needs ‘reorientation’
Rush said the food production sector needed to be “reorientated” and she questioned whether, with a growing population, New Zealand was producing enough vegetables to provide five servings a day for everyone.

While there are a number of initiatives such as community gardens, food banks and even programmes to distribute food waste to hungry people, Dr Graham said each had its pros and cons and most did not address what was at the heart of the issue — a lack of money.

“We need to rethink how we distribute wealth across the country, so that all our citizens can do well.”

How this reorientation could work in practice was another matter.

One study modelled the effect of introducing taxes on unhealthy foods, such as sugar, while subsidising the cost of fruit and vegetables by 20 percent. It found such a scheme would deliver significant health gains.

There have also been calls for a National Food Strategy.

The Aotearoa Circle, a think tank with public and private sector partners, is tackling a strategy and has appointed KPMG as the secretariat.

Suffered heart attack
KPMG’s global head of agribusiness Ian Proudfoot is leading the project and has a personal interest in good nutrition.

In 2017, he suffered a heart attack and while recuperating he met many people living with heart disease. He was able to change his diet after his heart attack, but many people he met could not afford to.

“Our food system at the moment is delivering very poor health outcomes to many New Zealanders. The stats are well known. We’ve got some of the worst rates globally — and particularly among developed countries — in relation to things like obesity, diabetes, and cardiovascular disease.

“Our food system has undoubtedly put quite significant pressure on some of our natural assets, particularly our water.”

New Zealand food exports made the country $46.6 billion in the 12 months to February and that scale of food production complicated matters, he said.

“We have a food system that’s incredibly complex compared to most countries and particularly compared to any other developed country because we do rely so heavily on it to create our wealth.”

What started as a strategy for food, has grown into a much bigger task, Proudfoot said.

Understanding of food’s role
It quickly became evident what was needed was an understanding of food’s role in our country and any strategy needed to look at not just issues like food security, but economics, the environment and culture.

“If you’re looking for an ocean to boil, it’s this one. It crosses almost every ministerial portfolio – there’s 31 primary agencies in government with a role in the food system.”

The group had talked to some of the government agencies already. Some were more receptive than others, Proudfoot said.

The idea of “feeding the five million first” has also been floated at agricultural gatherings and it resonated with the sector, Proudfoot said.

Rather than using legislation to enforce such a concept, the sector could adopt it as part of ensuring the New Zealand brand has a good story to tell, Proudfoot suggested.

Food insecurity would not be solved in one or two years, he said, but over time the best case scenario was a New Zealand food system which was environmentally sustainable and provided New Zealand with the nutrition needed for good health at an affordable price.

It would also create prosperity for the country.

“The worst case scenario is we continue on our current track but out ability to access premium markets becomes increasingly compromised because we’re either not getting the health issues right, or we’re not getting the environmental issues right, or we’re not meeting our expectations that are our customers who pay us a premium for what we produce have on us.”

This article is republished under a community partnership agreement with RNZ.