Māori sense of guardianship to protect their land for future generations offers both unique marketing opportunities and challenges to Māori land development, which is considered a key segment to growing New Zealand’s primary sector.
The potential of Māori freehold land to increase primary sector exports is starting to be realised with Māori trusts and incorporations growing successful platforms, in which dairy farming is playing a major role.
The challenges to developing Māori freehold land, however, are manifold and progress is inconsistent across the country, Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) deputy director Ben Dalton says.
“It depends on where you are. In some areas you’ve still got to win the battle to convince people that pursuing economic development is a useful path to take. In other areas where they’ve had long-standing commercial entities it’s not as difficult.”
For government to reach its goal to double primary sector exports by 2025, supporting increased production on Māori land will be a key factor.
Māori freehold land could be the sleeping giant in terms of the New Zealand economy, with an estimated 80% or more than 1 million hectares estimated to be under-productive.
In most regions a substantial amount of Māori land holding is under-performing or is under lease arrangements where it could be used a lot better than it is right now, Dalton says.
“Large parts of it, because there is no governance structure or no deliberate utilisation, becomes by default part of the conservation estate.”
A 2013 MPI report estimated raising the production levels on Māori land up to regional benchmarks was worth an extra $8 billion to the economy over 10 years.
It was estimated the development could create 3600 new jobs onfarm and cause an expansion in the service and processing sectors.
There is also significant potential for selling niche primary sector exports based on the unique story of the Māori culture, Dalton says.
“Undoubtedly. I always look at the wine industry and how much they use the Māori iconography and that’s got to be one of NZ’s success stories.
“If you’re trying to signal to overseas markets what is different about this country it’s not only its whole environmental purity, but also the Māori culture which increasingly, to different levels, is being adopted by New Zealanders as a whole.”
There are numerous examples of large scale Māori-owned dairy operations, which are now high-performing farms, but they have had a long history, Dalton says.
For example, dairy processor Miraka, owned by a group of Māori trusts and incorporations, is an outstanding example of Māori success, but it was a 40-year journey to get there, he says.
“What we want to do over the next few years is get it down to a 10-year or maybe a five-year journey.”
The Ahuwhenua competition is a platform to showcase Māori success. It is a competition that is well-known and is attracting a lot of interest from local farmers, Dalton says.
“It’s not only seen as a Māori competition any more, even though it’s for Māori-owned farms, but everybody comes and that’s because people understand if you’re in a region you share the same difficulties and the same issues.”
Building momentum to enter the competition or to push the development of Māori land takes time, he says.
“It always comes down to one aunty, or one individual in the family aided and abetted by one person who has got leadership skills and someone who has got administrative skills to take the bull by the horns and make it happen.”
MPI’s 2030 strategy includes a commitment to support the primary sectors, including Māori, to maximise the benefits from sustainable use of their primary sector assets.
MPI’s Māori Agribusiness: Pathway to Increased Productivity programme is aimed to partner with Māori to overcome some of the unique challenges they face when developing their primary sector assets.
It is working with Māori to identify different land uses and has worked with a number of land-owners across the country, including bringing together smaller land blocks to build economic scale, enabling Māori landowners to make informed decisions.
One of the main challenges to Māori land development is multiple party ownership, which has made it difficult to set up governance structures, make decisions on land use and drive informed business decisions.
There are an estimated 27,137 Māori freehold titles, with about 2.5 million ownership interests in those titles, an average of nearly 100 owners for each block. Māori need to have the opportunity and support to establish a governance structure over their land, be given information around the potential use of that land, and understand it, so they can be in position to make an informed decision, Dalton says.
“If at the end they decide that their main priority is to keep it conservation land that’s a decision based on information.
“It’s not that the government is saying everybody should convert to dairy or to economic utility. If they want to keep it for conservation purposes or environmental purposes, fine.”
Many Māori would say they didn’t want their land put into dairy, he says. However, increasingly, along with the rest of the primary sector, there is a move towards sustainability which is information that has to be shared with Māori.
“The work the dairy industry has made in water management and effluent management is quite outstanding and is probably a bit of an untold story.”
There are new funding opportunities and policies being created to make it easier for Māori to pursue options and increase the productivity possibilities on their land.
The Whenua Māori Fund, announced in February, aims to support Māori land owners to explore different uses of land and ways to boost its productivity. The $12.8 million funding over the next four years will support owners and trustees looking to improve existing operations, diversify or prepare for new opportunities.
Access to capital has been a challenge in the past, but that is changing with more support from banks. For example, BNZ and ANZ have specific Māori lending departments, Dalton says.
A revised Bill before government is aimed at further helping support Māori to enable them to develop their land and give them greater autonomy to make decisions, with protections in place to ensure the land stays in Māori hands.
The Te Ture Whenua Māori Bill had its first reading in Parliament in May, with the intention to replace the Te Ture Whenua Māori Act 1993.
For more information on the Whenua Māori Fund visit: www.tpk.govt.nz/whenuaMāori
