Cultivate is a co-design toolkit designed to facilitate collaboration and alignment amongst key actors in Aotearoa New Zealand’s food system. It aims to empower key decision makers with the insights necessary to advance our food system alongside local communities and in alignment with te Tiriti. Cultivate draws upon principles of co-design, gamification and “serious” play to create a level playing field for knowledge sharing and collaboration to take place. The toolkit includes four tools designed to encourage key actors to engage in kōrero, consider the people impacted, understand each other’s value and practise long term thinking. 

Cultivate is based on the Mana Kai framework; a te ao Māori framing of the purposes and values of our food system published by the Aotearoa Circle. Through the integration of the Mana Kai framework, Cultivate aims to strengthen alignment between key actors, encourage systemic thinking and model positive relationships with Māori as tangata tiriti.

A sincere thank you to everyone who contributed their time, knowledge and feedback to help me with this project. I would also like to acknowledge and thank the Aotearoa Circle and its partners. I did not engage with them during this project but I deeply admire the work they have done to enhance alignment across our food system. Through Cultivate, I aspire to honour and further advance their efforts.