SUSTAINABILITY AND COMMUNITY SUPPORTED AGRICULTURE FROM THE PERSPECTIVE OF A SMALLHOLDER

By Joe Polaischer

I came to this country and I was struck by the uniqueness of this land and the history of its people. I had carried in my mind a dream and a vision for a long time and I thought this is the place where the dream can materialise. This conference certainly is a catalyst for creating an eco-nation and this is what my dream was all about. Aotearoa/New Zealand has everything going for it, its geographical location, its climate, a small population, its clean, green image and people who have shown determination and leadership in the past. In particular I think of woman’s suffrage, this nations fight against apartheid (Springbok tour 1981) and the anti-nuclear stance. And again we can show the rest of the world that sustainable living is possible.

Organic farming and growing is a step in the right direction. So what does "organic" actually mean? It is a catch phrase these days with different meanings, just like the word "sustainability" which is used so often, or should I say, mis-used. Organics has so many faces and standards, at the moment so many new ones are popping up in this country that I personally have reached a point of confusion.

By doing a cradle to grave or production line analysis of our current food production I have to say that I find hardly anything that is sustainable. It is like eating out of an oil well. To become sustainable about feeding ourselves on this planet we need to understand and adopt natural laws or basic laws of nature in our way of consumption. We would have to close cycles, the nutrient cycle, the mineral cycle, the carbon cycle and so on. Our economic model at present is based on mining resources, most of them unrenewable, e.g. fossil fuels. Also we would need new values, going away from profit-driven short-term gain, long-term pain attitudes. Linear thinking in our education, science and economy would have to be replaced by cyclic thinking. We know matter and energy cannot be destroyed, only dispersed. Nothing disappears as we painfully experience with our 70,000 man made chemicals in the environment and in our food.

So organic farming and growing is a step towards ecological, holistic farming that will eventually be sustainable. So don’t panic, go organic tomorrow and let’s aim for a sustainable eco-nation by 2020.

The quickest way there is education of the consumer. The consumer is the market, it is you and me, the consumer dollar is the almighty power that drives our economy. It is so powerful it can bring down the biggest multi-national in no time. The farmers and growers of this world are boosting the profits of the agri-business and subsidising the consumers of unsustainable cities. We are currently paying too little for our food. The result is that rural communities suffer, the environment gets degraded and even economists must realise that without healthy environment, there can be no healthy economy.

The most numerous mammal on this planet is the human being and by the end of my speech there will be about 5,400 more of us to feed and some want to do it with genetic engineering or with ever more agri-chemicals and with bigger machinery. But we can only do it with sustainable, ecological farming and by cycling our nutrients.

As a smallholder, Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) is a way of becoming sustainable, also in an economic sense, closing the gap between consumer and producer. The family farm is disappearing fast all over the world, the German word for it is "Bauernsterben" which expresses it well. It’s time we exercised our responsibility to support sustainable food production.

Farming was once the most respected profession in most cultures, it is time to get the culture back into agriculture. We can only do it by having control of our gene pools, the seeds. Biotechnology is as old as agriculture, we farmers and growers have modified and improved our plants and animals but always using natural ways of doing so. Not by crossing species from the plant kingdom with species from the animal kingdom as we do now with GE technology, which is so little understood and untested. I would call it an irresponsible shotgun technology with unknown consequences to the web of life. Environmental problems are symptoms of nothing less than our abusive relationship with our planet.

Together we can create a paradigm shift, we need nothing less than that for the survival of life as we know it. At the moment we lose 50,000 species of plants and animals per year or approximately 6 species an hour (David Suzuki). We can do better, all it needs is the will. This is a start, lets do it with ethical investment, investing in our families, local communities and sustainable industries. Every little thing leading to sustainable living counts. As Oscar Wilde said "The person who believes that they are too small to make a difference has obviously never spent a night with a flea".

Happy growing organically towards a sustainable eco-nation by the year 2020.

Kia Ora.

Rainbow Valley Farm
588 Matakana Valley Road
RD5 Warkworth