The people who run New Zealand’s largest export earner have once again put a single worry above all others. For the sixteenth year running, world-class biosecurity has topped the list of priorities for the leaders of the food and fibre sector, according to the seventeenth annual Agribusiness Agenda from accounting and advisory firm KPMG.
The report, titled “From status quo to status change”, draws on a survey of 136 industry leaders carried out over February and March, along with a series of roundtable discussions around the country. Biosecurity scored an average priority of 9.40 out of 10, the highest mark any single issue has recorded since 2018, and comfortably ahead of everything else on the list. You can read the full findings on the KPMG Agribusiness Agenda page.
That biosecurity keeps winning is not really a surprise. A single unwanted pest or disease arriving at the border could wipe billions off the value of exports built on a handful of plants and animals. The report warns that many of the country’s most important export sectors are built on monocultures, which makes a fresh incursion far more dangerous than it would be in a more varied farming system. One foot and mouth outbreak, one fruit fly that establishes itself, one new strain of a crop disease, and the damage spreads quickly through a sector with little to fall back on.
The contributors also flagged a more uncomfortable point, that confidence in New Zealand’s response system may be running ahead of reality. Threat profiles are changing, partly because of climate change and partly because of rising global trade and travel, yet the country’s approach to spotting and stopping new arrivals still leans heavily on past successes. The report calls for better data tools, stronger surveillance at the border and a mindset geared towards the next incursion rather than the last one.
Sitting behind the second-placed priority, high quality trade agreements, is the same basic truth. New Zealand sells most of what it grows and catches to the rest of the world, so the terms of that trade matter enormously. Trade deals have held a place in the top three for eight years in a row, and they have rarely felt more relevant. The sector is watching tariff moves in the United States closely, including a fresh threat to add charges on goods linked to forced labour, and any wobble in access to a major market lands straight on the bottom line of farmers, growers and processors.
After trade came water storage, then rural infrastructure and broadband access, then the shift to climate resilient farming systems, public-private science partnerships and telling a more convincing story about where New Zealand food comes from. Statements about the environment and the natural world rose about 8 percent in importance compared with last year, a sign that climate adaptation is moving from a future problem to a present one. With drier conditions expected to raise the risk of drought later in 2026, the leaders treated climate volatility as something already on the farm rather than something coming over the hill.
The tone of the survey was notably brighter than in recent years. Ian Proudfoot, KPMG’s global head of agribusiness, said the industry is “really looking at worthy opportunities that lie in front of them, as opposed to the constraints”. The word fatigue, which ran through earlier editions during the pandemic and the trade tensions that followed, did not appear this time. The report’s framing, from status quo to status change, is a deliberate push for the sector to chase transformation rather than settle for steady-as-she-goes.
The stakes help explain the seriousness. Food and fibre is the country’s biggest export industry by a wide margin. The Ministry for Primary Industries forecasts sector export revenue of $62 billion in the year to 30 June 2026, up 3 percent on the previous year and a fresh record. Dairy alone is tipped to bring in $27.4 billion, around 44 percent of the total, while meat and wool are forecast at $13.2 billion and horticulture at $9.2 billion, according to the December Situation and Outlook for Primary Industries report.
Those numbers are why a list of priorities from 136 executives is worth paying attention to. The choices the sector makes on where to put its money and political energy, whether that is a new diagnostic lab at the airport, a regional water scheme, faster rural broadband or a free trade deal, shape the export receipts that flow back into provincial towns and, through them, into the wider economy. The reporting from RNZ and Rural News picked up the same theme, that the people closest to the paddock want the country to stop defending the gains of the past and start building the system that protects the next decade of growth.
For all the optimism, the message under the headline is a caution. The thing that has worried these leaders most for sixteen straight years is still the thing that could undo everything else, and they are not convinced the country is taking it seriously enough.
What do you make of the sector’s priorities, and is New Zealand spending enough to keep pests and diseases out? Share your thoughts in the comments below.
This article was written by AI, briefed to report the facts, hopefully without some of the bias people bring to the job π
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