Te Pāti Māori pledges $3.1 billion plan for 'kai sovereignty' if elected

Te Pāti Māori have unveiled their $3.1 billion plan for "kai sovereignty", promising tax credits, a Community Kai Fund and funding for Māori-owned supermarkets if elected.The party said their policy sets out a path from "kai dependency to kai sovereignty" and would deliver immediate cost-of-living relief by investing in Māori and community food production and ownership.The policy includes:An "Income Tax Kai Credit" for people earning $60,000 or less valued at up to eight weeks of kai each year. The party estimates the credit will support 64 percent of the Aotearoa (3 million people) and cost $2.8 billion.Establishing a Māori Kai Sovereignty Board with powers to address poverty and hunger.Setting up a $100 million Community Kai Fund for home gardens, marae māra kai and community farms and scholarships for rangatahi to study food sciences.Invest $100m in Mātai Ahuwhenua for whenua blocks to grow their own kai and work with councils to set aside more land for farms.$100m in seed funding to set up Māori-owned supermarket chains and regenerative and organic farming training programmes.Protect the whakapapa of kai by honour the findings of WAI 262, support Māori kai licensing and trademarks, develop a Māori Seed Conservation Strategy and oppose genetically engineered food.Te Pāti Māori MP for Hauraki-Waikato Hana-Rāwhiti Maipi-Clarke said Aotearoa produces a huge amount of food but too many whānau were struggling to put it on the table."That is not a shortage of food. It is a failure of the system."She said the party did not want people "permanently dependent" on food parcels or corporate-controlled food chains."We want whānau growing kai, marae feeding communities, Māori producing kai, and our people owning more of the systems that distribute and sell it."Afford the kai. Grow the kai. Own the system," she said.A policy document released by Te Pāti Māori said Aotearoa needed sustainable ways to provide more food for everyone, while breaking the "stranglehold that monopolies have on food supply"."We must return to our traditional practices and customs of gathering kai because our sustenance can no longer be in the hands of corporate-controlled food chains," the document said.The policy comes as other party's pitch their own policies to break up the supermarket duopoly.National and New Zealand First would breakup Foodstuffs, the Greens would set up a government-owned supermarket chain called KiwiMart, and Labour would force Foodstuffs and Woolworths to run their wholesale operations independently.