Kai Anamata mō Aotearoa is a three-day national food-futures conference, 10–12 November 2026 at Motueka Memorial Hall (opening pōwhiri at Te Āwhina Marae), hosted by Wakatū Incorporation and Te Āwhina Marae with the Riddet Institute.
Kai Anamata mō Aotearoa — "food futures for Aotearoa" — is a three-day national conference running 10–12 November 2026 in Motueka, built around a single question: what will it take to feed our future? Its official site frames it as a national conversation on food security in a changing world, drawing together the threads of climate change, technology, economics, biodiversity and food sovereignty to "connect, inform, align and amplify positive change."
The conference is hosted by Wakatū Incorporation and Te Āwhina Marae in Motueka, and brought together with the Riddet Institute and its Sustainable Nutrition Initiative (SNi), per the official conference site. It grows out of the wider Kai Anamata mō Aotearoa kaupapa — a research partnership between Wakatū Incorporation and the Riddet Institute (hosted at Massey University) that weaves mātauranga Māori together with food science to safeguard Aotearoa's food supply.
The organiser describes the audience as anyone with a stake in the future of food in Aotearoa: iwi, hapū and marae, growers, researchers and scientists, enterprise, government and community. The programme moves in three arcs — Day 1 "Global forces to local choices," with international contributors from Hawai'i, Switzerland and Australia; Day 2 "Emerging knowledge to practical innovation"; and Day 3 "Conversation to collective action," built around site visits to local Motueka food work (transport to and from each location is included in registration). Around 33 speakers are listed, including Dr John Roche (the Prime Minister's Chief Science Advisor), Dr Jessica Hutchings, Professor Nick Roskruge, Moko Morris, Angela Clifford, Maury Leyland Penno and Agroscope's Dr Fabian Wahl. The regional tourism listing notes that Day 2 at Motueka Memorial Hall includes the launch of the draft Te Tauihu Regional Food Strategy and the Motueka Call, followed by a conference dinner. Capacity is capped at 150 delegates.
Proceedings open with a pōwhiri at Te Āwhina Marae on Tuesday 10 November before moving to Motueka Memorial Hall for the main programme on 11 and 12 November. Motueka sits in the Tasman district at the gateway to Abel Tasman National Park, roughly 50km (about a 45-minute drive) west of Nelson. The nearest air gateway is Nelson Airport, the region's domestic hub, from which delegates travel on to Motueka by road; a 150-delegate cap keeps the footprint well within the Memorial Hall's capacity, and the marae-to-hall structure keeps most delegate movement within the town itself.
Kai Anamata mō Aotearoa is a genuinely national conference anchored in a regional town rather than a main-centre convention centre — a marae-led, iwi-hosted gathering that pairs a working pōwhiri with a policy launch and field visits. For the Nelson Tasman region it demonstrates capacity to host a multi-day, nationally significant primary-sector event outside the usual Tier 1 cities, and its tikanga-first structure is a strong example of mana-whenua-hosted business events in Aotearoa.
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