Director-General's Introduction
MAF has a long and proud history as a core government Ministry influencing the development and success of New Zealand s primary industries. These primary industries remain as important as ever to the progress of the economy, and they are increasingly recognised as major influences on the health of our environment. Accordingly, MAF's role is to facilitate both the future growth and development of our primary industries and their progress towards achieving high-quality environmental standards. In short, MAF is a sustainable development agency with a particular focus on New Zealand s primary industries.
The development of a Statement of Intent has provided an ideal opportunity to reassess just how we should be going about our work. This reassessment comes from an obligation to specify the outcomes we intend to pursue over the longer term, to specify the intermediate outcomes that will contribute to these longer-term outcomes, and to break these down further into the more specific activities we will be undertaking. The higher level outcomes also prompt us to reassess how well the organisation is equipped to achieve its ambitions and how we will measure progress towards our goals. The Statement of Intent sits at the heart of our planning and organisational development processes.
This document outlines the outcomes that we seek for MAF over a three-to five-year horizon. The focus of our ambitions is clear the sustained and sustainable prosperity of New Zealand s agriculture, horticulture, forestry, food and related industries. With that comes MAF's contribution to the Government s overarching economic goal of returning New Zealand to the top half of the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) per capita income league. Our primary sectors are such dominant contributors to New Zealand s overall economic performance that it is inconceivable that New Zealand can meet that target without the agriculture, horticulture, forestry and food sectors continuing to deliver, and improve on the very strong productivity gains they have delivered in recent years.
MAF's role is to facilitate and encourage such leading performance clear the way for the sustainable success of the sectors. To do so, we must bring our unique contribution to the tables where policies are debated and resources allocated. We must bring to the Government s policy development processes a comprehensive and deep knowledge of agriculture, horticulture, forestry and food; the people who work in the sectors; the institutions and companies that create the incomes and wealth on which we are so dependent; and the markets in which the products are sold. We must also bring an equally deep understanding of the relationships between economic outcomes, on the one hand, and environmental, social and cultural outcomes, on the other. To be successful over the longer term, New Zealand must be able to integrate the two dimensions they are not trade-offs or alternatives.
The high-level outcomes that we have identified relate to:
- Sector development, focused on MAF's role as policy adviser and regulator.
- Safe and freer trade, recognising that relative to other OECD economies, New Zealand is uncommonly dependent on its primary industries and sells the overwhelming majority of its total primary production into foreign markets.
- Protecting and enhancing our natural resource base.
In pursuing each of these, we will need to be well connected to our stakeholders in the private and public sectors, domestically and internationally and be able to demonstrate that we can make a positive difference and that we do bring something unique and valuable to the table. 8
Contact for Enquiries
Strategy and Performance Group
Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry
Pastoral House
25 The Terrace
PO Box 2526, Wellington
Tel: +64 4 894 0100
Fax: +64 4 894 0738
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