Kai resilience advocate Pounamu Skelton is dedicated to helping whānau grow food and to trade it. She runs the popular Waitara crop swap.
Her interest in food is steeped in the legacy of her tūpuna Māori, respecting food as medicine, nourishment and connection.
In addition to running the monthly food swap, Skelton also teaches others how to grow their own food.
Photo: Pounamu Skelton
Skelton tells Kathryn Ryan that she grew up eating from her whānau’s vegetable garden and never knew any different in terms of food source.
“I live in a town where people have very large backyards and they’re just growing kaikuia and so I was inspired to start to reinvigorate the interest in growing kai again.
“We have a high Māori population, fairly low income and so crop swap is an old-fashioned toha system, I share what I’ve got and you receive that.
Photo: Pounamu Skelton
“So it’s like there’s no money exchange, you turn up with what you have a lot of [in your garden] … might be magazines or bamboo, and you just get to swap, you just get to take home things you wouldn’t have.”
But it’s not just about the kai, the mauri (life force) of soil benefits our wellbeing too, she says.
“When we have healthy soil fully vibrating, then food grows much easier and then of course we get to eat that beautiful food.
“I’ve been working with people around Taranaki for about 8 years now and I’ve noticed how it can transform people’s mental health from anxiety to feeling very calm and empowered through the actions of growing food.”
Te Waka Kai Ora, which she co-chairs, has also developed the kaupapa Māori system of hua parakore for growing kai.
“[Hua parakore involves] the principles of our tūpuna, for example, our whakapapa, knowing the story of the land, knowing the story of the seed, ensuring you’re not using a GMO seed, that you’re using as pure a seed as possible,” Skelton says.
“Also [hua parakore is about] understanding what mauri is, so when we make compost, what happens is all of the invisible little organisms get working for us, they’re such helpers in the garden and then they turn your waste into beautiful soil, so it’s coming back to old principles of gardening.
“We follow the maramataka, which is using the power of the moon that draws the water up from the Earth at certain times of the month … so you’re just working with nature, not against nature.”
Waitara Crop Swapping Photo: Pounamu Skelton
They also focus on preventing any disruption or disturbance to organic activity in the soil, and so they use natural fertilisers and try to avoid tilling, she says.
An online conference, He Whenua Rongo, on the kai and soil resilience movement drew hundreds of participants earlier this month.
It was part of a larger research project in partnership with Te Waka Kai Ora, Aatea Solutions, and Papawhakaritorito Charitable Trust.
“It’s quite a big topic at the moment as we face the price rises in the duopolies of supermarkets, that actually we need to come up with our own solutions,” Skelton says.
Photo: Pounamu Skelton
“So we had a huge uptake, about 700 registrations, and it was an online conference, two days with some fabulous speakers from all around over the country, sharing urban solutions to being more resilient for food, what are communities doing and then back up to climate change, you know, how that’s going to impact gardening in the future, and obviously water and all the things you need to grow good kai.
“[People] want to do something different, they want to grow food, they want to return to their land, they want to work more in community, they want to trade, and they want to take control back over food supply for themselves.”
They are now look at setting urban farming areas to strengthen knowledge about food cycles in the community, she says.
“It’s in the forefront of people’s minds that real resilience is not just food in your cupboard for today, it’s food that’s there for six months, you know, what are you thinking about for next year when you’re going to grow your garden.
“So it’s kind of [about] having a plan forward, so we’re not just eating hand to mouth or ‘we’ll just pop down to the supermarket because we can’, we actually need to start thinking differently.”
