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careers :: Organic Farming by Nicole Mason |
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Awarded a grant in 2001 by Cornell University, Nicole Mason, a recent
graduate, traveled to New Zealand to take up her passion – organic
agriculture. Traveling through cities and countryside, Nicole spent 12
months surveying a country about the size of Colorado where organic agriculture
has exploded in personal home gardens and large-scale plantations. New
Zealand, birthplace of the WOOF (Working On Organic Farms) system (www.woof.org),
an internationally known and replicated way for travelers to work and
live on farms throughout the world, had a lot to offer Nicole. Read her monthly journals here on 1-42 to learn
about organic agriculture, New Zealand, Nicole’s research and her
journey.
L.A–Auckland–Hawke’s Bay–Matakana–Auckland. I was scheduled to leave for New Zealand from Los Angeles, on September
11th. I had picked that day months in advance, and decided that it was
a good time of year to arrive in Auckland. Being on the other side of
the equator, spring would be just beginning and there would be a revived
energy (as well as new blossoms) after a long winter. I left Boston for
the Pacific North West where I visited Washington, Oregon, San Francisco,
and finally Los Angeles for my scheduled departure. I ended up staying
in Los Angeles for almost a week longer than I had planned. I was glued
to the news like the rest of the country for most of that time. I will
always remember where I was. My flight to New Zealand was uneventful. The Los Angeles-to-Fiji leg
of my journey was very empty, which was understandable, of course, but
great for those of us who did decide to fly. I had a whole row of seats
to sprawl out on, and I slept for about ninehours straight. The Fiji-to-Auckland
leg wasn’t so spacious, but I was just as happy to stay awake and
look out the window at the landscape below me. It was dotted with green
mountains and surrounded by turquoise water. I was on the other side of
the world. Although I was jet lagged, even those first few days were action packed.
I walked around downtown Auckland, window shopping and learning about
the different parts of the city. Then I walked around Devonport, where
I was staying. It is a suburb just across the bay from the city, and a
ten-minute ferry ride from Auckland. From my window, I looked out at Rangitoto,
a perfectly shaped volcano. One thing that is wonderful about Auckland is the view: dotted around
the city are green volcano heads. Their tops seem to jut out in the distance
in front of my path no matter where I was heading. They also make for
a great walks as they are conserved from development because of their
Maori (Aboriginal people of New Zealand, of Polynesian-Melanesian descent)
historical importance. After getting over my jet lag, I traveled south to an area called Hawke’s
Bay. I had made several contacts there while at Cornell, and I had heard
that it was very beautiful (which it was!). The closest city, Napier,
was rebuilt after a devastating earthquake in the early 1930s. Architects
from all over New Zealand came to aid in redesigning the city and volunteered
their time. “Art Deco” was the fashionable style at that time;
almost every building is designed with that era in mind. It makes for
a very picturesque city. I stayed in a small beach town called Te Awanga - on the coast between
Napier and Hastings. Each day I did something new. I went out to Cape
Kidnappers and saw the largest Gannet nesting population in the world.
The birds are beautiful with yellow and white bodies and bright blue eyelashes.
As they learn to fly they take off for Australia (over 1,500 miles away),
resting on wind currents above the water. When they are ready to nest,
it’s back to the exact same spot where they were born, here in New
Zealand. That is more than 3,000 miles of traveling. My First Farm Site Scott’s farm was more a model of industrial organics than a small
farm that uses alternative production methods. He showed me a weeding
machine that virtually vaporizes plants with steam. It is more effective
and ecologically sound than propane gas weeding, he explained, by being
more precise and using much less fuel. He had custom fitted his machine
so that he could direct the steam to exactly where he wanted it in each
planting bed. Biodynamic Agriculture I visited two smaller farms in Hawke’s Bay, both of which were using
biodynamic principles. Biodynamic agriculture was an idea started by Rudolf
Steiner in the 1920s. Being biodynamic is based on the idea that a farm
is an individual location with an individual set of needs and that everything
is in constant motion and contains its own life force. A central part
of biodynamic practices is the use of the biodynamic preparations, consisting
of cow manure and finely ground silica, or herbs which have been prepared
by being buried in the ground in different vessels, then dug up, mixed
with water and spread around the farm. There are several preparations, labeled with numbers like Preparation
500 or Preparation 501, used to increase growth, fight disease and/or
pests, or increase color or health. Often the preparations require fighting
a problem with a tincture of that same crop. Biodynamic farming takes
into account that a variety of rhythms or configurations of moon, stars,
and planets have an effect on the natural world. It turns out Hawke’s
Bay is the hotspot for biodynamic farming, being the home of Taruna (www.taruna.ac.nz),
the anthropomorphic school that offers a diploma in biodynamic farming.
I spent about five days in Hawke’s Bay before returning to Devonport.
I realized from my trip that I couldn’t conduct the kind of research
I wanted to without a car. The distances were too far, and over two-thirds
of the population of New Zealand live north of Hamilton, about an hour
south of Auckland. I simply could not rely on strangers and busses to
transport me from one end of the island to the other. The market is Permaculture Just this past week I went and visited a farm north of Auckland in a
“town” called Matakana. Joe Polaischer, an organic farmer/guru,
owns the farm. He moved here about fifteen years ago onto a 40-acre plot
of land in a valley. The mountains around him had been completely deforested
at the turn of the century, resulting in heavy erosion and 100% clay soil
down in the valley. All the topsoil had rolled away into the river. Joe’s farm is built entirely on permaculture design, using biodynamic
principles. He even built his house out of mud brick and local Kauri (a
coniferous tree of New Zealand) wood left over from another construction
site. It has a sod roof with grasses and wild flowers. Hundreds of fruit
trees from around the world litter the property, as well as many vegetables,
some of which are new to me. Ducks, cows, pigs, bees and chickens abound,
the latter providing a heat source for his greenhouse in winter. The coop
was onto the side of the greenhouse and the heat from the brooding chickens
heated the greenhouse all winter long. What was most impressive about Rainbow Valley Farm was Joe’s soil.
It was as dark as chocolate pudding, and equally as rich. As he dug down
to show us what was really below the topsoil, much to my surprise he pulled
up a green-gray ball of clay, showing just how deceiving looks can be.
Most of his vegetable plots were made of raised beds, and his fruit trees
used compost, wood chips, and banana fronds to mulch. I asked him about how he dealt with farm pests. According to Joe, in
permaculture there is no such thing. “Nicole, the problem is the
solution.” To exemplify this, he took me out into his orchard to
look at his apple trees. Because codling moths bore into the stems of
apples, the fruits fall to the ground. Pigs benefit his farm by eating
up the apples, killing the moths in the process. They are breaking the
cycle of the moths and making the “solution” appear in full
circle . Another example he used was with the possums. Like many New Zealanders,
his farm is typically bombarded with them; in fact, he has killed over
5,500 Ecological New Zealand Although this country is small in size, it is vast in other ways like
its diversity of flora and its different kinds of ecosystems. I can’t
wait to discover more.
2004 1-42 Online |
October
12, 2001
advantageous
for buying cheap old cars, and the U.S. dollar is very strong, so I started
driving around a white, 1988 Mitsubishi station wagon. It took time to
get used to driving on the wrong side of the road, shifting with the wrong
hand, and sitting on the opposite side of the car. A couple of times I
tried to open the door of the passenger side thinking I would find a steering
wheel. 
possums on his property and has then buried them with his fruit trees
as fertilizer. “Even they are useful resources,” he explained.
I wonder if anyone else in the country agrees.