In order for us to live sustainably the
structures that meet our basic needs
must work towards regeneration rather
than consumption and depletion. We wanted
to find what alternatives exist to
buying food at the supermarkets, which in
their current form encourage destructive
farming practices.
I've been studying sustainable farming
systems for over 25 years.
There are no real issues; we can solve
all of them. There are really easy
answers to grow food quality and with
good environmental care.
CSA stands for Community Supported Agriculture.
It means that a farmer
starts growing food, and growing food
there's a lot of unknowns in there. You
don't know for whatever reason if you're
going to harvest all the things that
you've planned to harvest, that you've
started sowing months back. So the idea
is that a group of people support the
farmer so the farmer knows he's got an
outlet. Our optimum is to have 200
members, at the moment we've got between
a hundred and 150. Every week, every
Wednesday and Thursday depending on
where people live, we send them – they
receive a box and they know that every
week they're going to get a box of
healthy fresh foods that have been
harvested just before they got them.
For us it means we have stability in the
fact that the plants we sow, that they are
sold. We don't have the issue of food
waste because if a broccoli is small and
it normally wouldn't be able to go to
supermarket, we can give people two.
Supermarket is the complete
opposite because they are just going for
bigger and longer shelf life and that
encourages the farmer to go into the
input rat race, which is a race
without an end and they buy an ever
increasing amount of inputs, which results
in environmental pollution and all the
other downstream effects.
As a farmer you want to
create healthy soils and
healthy plants and healthy animals and
further up the food chain you make sure
that you create a soil that invites the
right sets of microbes, that's the job.
We've got the microorganisms which are
governing the system, we just create a
habitat for them. Then you got the plants
growing out of there, be it annuals,
perennials and trees.
Then amongst that
you've got insects living in there and
then we've incorporated pigs, sheep, cows,
ducks, geese and I'm sure we're forgetting
a few bits and bobs and every single
item adds value.
The idea was when the
olive trees were big enough we would
have animals underneath – sheep, dairy
sheep, for example, we think mixed system
is really important between plants and
animals to keep the recycling and the
cycling optimal and not having to
buy in fertilisers or inputs. You don't–
You don't realise this but this used to be
pastoral desert, it was just grass, yeah and
this is what people can do. You can
create heaven on earth.
Now if that microphone is any good then right now
you hear and you hear many many many
many more birdsongs then you hear in a
New Zealand native forest. Okay they're
are not all exotics ah they are not all
natives but my god
do they free up my spirit.
The supermarket system demands that
farmers supply uniform blemish-free
produce favoring looks over nutritional
value. This leads to conventional
growing practices like over applying
fertilisers and spraying with toxic
chemicals. The CSA model eases the
pressure on farmers because they are no
longer bound to meet these industry
demands, allowing them to farm in a way
that produces healthy food as well as
building the soil, creating biodiversity
and increasing resilience to natural
forces like drought and pests.
We are in a position to do it properly
because of the CSA, our members allow us
to create that diversity. That other old
system doesn't allow you to create that diversity.
If you're interested in the
environment, if you're interested in
being responsible, looking after yourself,
taking responsibility for your own
health, if you're interested in social
responsibility then I would say go out
and find initiatives like ours and get
your food and your satisfaction from
places like that, and that will encourage
a snowball effect that will change this world.
Hey guys I hope you all enjoyed this
film. If you want to check out more
videos along similar themes be sure to
visit HappenFilms.com for more. I want
to say special thanks to Anna Ballard,
Tenkai and Lee-Anne Diepdael for their
generous donations to Happen Films.
Thanks for watching and I'll see you all
in the next film.