The protein system
New Zealand's protein system is built on grass. Dairy cows, beef cattle and sheep graze pasture for most of the year, so most protein reaches the table, or the export ship, without passing through a feed mill. On FAO food balance sheet figures, the country produces about 258 per cent of the protein its people eat, and 368 per cent of the animal protein.[1]
Most of that output is sold abroad. Dairy is the largest export, and red meat earned NZ$9.86 billion in 2024.[7, 33] The sea adds more: 87.2 per cent of assessed fish stocks sit above their soft limits, covering 97.0 per cent of assessed landings by weight.[8]
Two parts of the diet depend on imports. About 62 per cent of the pork eaten between January and September 2024 was imported, 66,686 tonnes against 41,099 tonnes produced at home.[9] Grain is the other: cereal production covers about half of domestic use, and about 63 per cent of grain and feed supply comes from abroad.[1, 13] Chicken is a domestic industry, because raw chicken meat cannot be imported under biosecurity rules.[10]
Durable domestic capacity:
Few countries match this base. Milk output of 21.5 million tonnes, beef of 741,844 tonnes and sheep meat of 449,606 tonnes in 2024 support a large export trade and a comfortable domestic supply.[2] Fisheries are in good order, with most assessed stocks above their soft limits.[8]
The base is large, but part of it depends on imported inputs. Record imports of 2.6 million tonnes of palm kernel expeller in 2025 carried dairy herds through dry periods, and synthetic nitrogen, three-quarters of it imported, drives much of the pasture growth.[3, 12] Output in a normal year therefore overstates what would hold if feed and nitrogen imports stopped.
The system has also come through serious shocks. A national programme to eradicate the cattle disease Mycoplasma bovis culled about 126,000 animals on top of 26,000 already removed, at a planned cost of NZ$886 million.[32] Cyclone Gabrielle set Hawke's Bay horticulture back by nearly NZ$1.5 billion in 2023.[31]
Resource headroom:
Water is abundant, at about 64,300 cubic metres of renewable freshwater per person a year.[6] Land is the constraint. Arable land is only 0.10 hectares per person, and the pastoral land that carries the protein system is fully used.[5]
Stock numbers are falling. Sheep fell from 29.8 million in 2014 to 23.6 million in 2024, and cattle from 10.4 million to 9.5 million, as land moved to forestry, dairy and other uses.[2] Environmental rules add a ceiling: synthetic nitrogen on grazed pasture has been capped at 190 kilograms per hectare a year since 2021.[11]
The means to invest are there. Irrigated area grew from 285,000 hectares in 2000 to 780,500 in 2023, most of it on dairy pasture, and lending to agriculture has stayed above its share of the economy.[14, 15] Cropland grew by 30.4 per cent over the same period, a little slower than population.[14] Growth now comes from higher yields and bought-in feed.
Import exposure:
Food makes up 12.5 per cent of merchandise imports, and the country produces far more animal protein than it uses.[1, 4] Import exposure is concentrated in two places. About three-fifths of pork is imported.[36] In grain, 89 per cent of wheat and almost all barley came from Australia in 2022.[13]
Relying on one supplier for grain is a concentration risk. It is eased by geography: Australia is a large surplus producer across the Tasman Sea, and the route passes no chokepoint. The same is true of the other main suppliers, which ship across the open Pacific.
Upstream dependence:
Farm inputs are New Zealand's weak point. In 2023 the country produced 96,600 tonnes of nitrogen against 368,000 tonnes used, about 26 per cent.[3] The single urea plant, at Kapuni, makes about 260,000 tonnes a year, roughly a third of national urea, and in 2025 it faced a shutdown of up to four months because affordable gas could not be secured.[20, 37] All 109,472 tonnes of potash were imported in 2023.[3] Phosphate rock is imported too, including 110,500 tonnes from Western Sahara in 2024.[16]
Fuel is the sharper exposure. All refined fuel has been imported since the Marsden Point refinery closed in 2022, 48 per cent of it by value from Korea and 33 per cent from Singapore, refineries that run largely on Gulf crude.[17, 18] Minimum stock obligations cover 28 days of petrol, 21 of diesel and 24 of jet fuel.[19] Farms, fishing boats, processors and the cold chain all run on that fuel.
Feed dependence is lower than in grain-fed systems because cattle and sheep graze. Palm kernel expeller is the exception, with record imports in 2025.[12]
Access and affordability:
Most people can afford enough food. is at the reporting floor of 2.5 per cent, and a healthy diet costs about 3.71 international dollars a person a day, against 4.75 in Fiji.[21, 22]
Household surveys show strain. In 2023/24, 27.0 per cent of children lived in households where food ran out often or sometimes, up from 21.3 per cent a year earlier. The share was 54.8 per cent for Pacific children and 34.3 per cent for Māori children.[23] Food prices rose 12.5 per cent in the year to April 2023, the fastest increase since 1987, helped by a weaker New Zealand dollar, which fell from 1.414 to 1.577 to the US dollar between 2021 and 2022.[24, 35]
Shock endurance:
The export surplus is the main buffer. In a crisis, milk, beef and lamb now sold abroad could be kept at home, and supply per person is well above requirement.[1]
Stocks are thin. There is no public reserve of food or feed grain, and the country entered the 2026 fuel shock with 33.6 days of petrol and 30.0 days of diesel on shore.[18] Food prices held steady through it: annual food inflation fell from 4.5 per cent in February 2026 to 2.5 per cent in June.[25]
Financial capacity is solid. Reserves stood at NZ$52.0 billion in June 2026, 3.9 months of imports, and New Zealand is rated AA+ by S&P and Fitch and Aaa by Moody's.[26, 27, 28] Support can scale quickly: the COVID-19 wage subsidy reached 1,073,129 workers, 41 per cent of the workforce, and the schemes paid NZ$19.4 billion by July 2022.[29, 30]
Trajectory
The pastoral base is shrinking slowly as land shifts to forestry and nitrogen and water rules tighten, while output per animal and per hectare continues to rise.[2, 11] The main risks lie upstream. Domestic gas is running down, putting the only urea plant in doubt, and the country depends on imported fuel with stocks of a few weeks.[17, 19, 20] Holding more fuel on shore and securing gas for fertiliser would do most to protect a protein system that is otherwise among the strongest in the world.