The Old Beaten Track
Title: The Old Beaten Track
We all know the risk on the horizon right? Social, economic and environmental instability are destabilising our fragmented food system. Just imagine if another disaster had happened at the same time as COVID-19. Which is not a stretch of the imagination when you look at the news and see geopolitical relations at the moment or see strange weather patterns that are creating droughts lasting into Autumn.
The real and perceived logistic breakdowns in the food chain have shown many people it is more important than ever to build a stronger local food supply, so that the food grown in their backyard, street, town or region is feeding the communities who live nearby.
Meanwhile, a 38-hectare site, which is on prime site in the central city is being used to ride horses around in circles. The Taranaki Racing Inc (TRI) pays the council $1 per annum for that privilege.
The public are being asked for their views on the future of New Plymouth's racecourse at the moment.
Four options are being offered in the survey:
- Granting a “forever” or perpetual lease to the race club.
- Granting a lease of up to 33 years.
- Creating a short-term lease of three to five years.
- Ending the lease.
I encourage you to make your opinion heard and fill in the very quick survey available through the NPDC website.
www.newplymouthnz.com...
The survey closes on July 10 and will be used to inform decision making.
Please note that I don’t want to demonise horse racing fans, we all need our hobbies. But there are plenty of country tracks where the racing can continue.
Imagine an urban food hub with orchards, community gardens, market gardens, food forests and educational sites with the latest innovative regenerative agriculture techniques being showcased.
Food is front centre as one of the four pillars of Taranaki's future economy. Justine Gilliland, chief executive of Venture Taranaki said the following in the Taranaki 2050 Roadmap Report.
“Starting now, we will cooperate and collaborate to drive innovation and
individual/collective opportunities to establish Taranaki as a respected region for premium, sustainable/low-emissions food and fibre by 2040, to achieve prosperity, environmental and social success, with the collective value of kaitiakitanga.”
Taranaki’s economy has a significant food and fibre industry. It contributes more than $1.5 billion annually to Taranaki’s economy, sustains over 10,200 jobs in 3,813 businesses and comprises more than half of Taranaki’s manufacturing base. Taranaki has the second highest food production GDP per capita in New Zealand. I think that is worth celebrating and amplifying.
Future predictions are that food is going to be playing an even bigger part of our economy going forward post COVID-19. WITT is just across the road from the current Racecourse. I know they would really appreciate a site nearby where they can engage in hands-on education for their horticulture and agriculture students.
In Melbourne, Australia the Collingwood Children's Farm is a thriving inner city site that is a great resource for schools to take their kids and every weekend it is abuzz with Farmers Markets and visitors to their farm to fork cafe.
More than 160,000 children live in households without enough food or the variety of foods that are required for good health. That is 1 in 5 children in Aotearoa. At the same time farmers have high suicide rates and agriculture is New Zealands biggest contributor to carbon emissions.
The food system is broken, but we know how to fix it, we just need to showcase the regenerative agriculture methods to this and future generations of farmers. We need to connect the dots between the urban consumers and the rural farmer. We need to show tourists that we have a vibrant food story and practice in Taranaki and New Zealand.
The path to change is lined with delicious and nutritious food. We just need to be bold and set a path that is different from the old beaten track.
Poll: Do you think NZ should ban social media for youth?
The Australian Prime Minister has expressed plans to ban social media use for children.
This would make it illegal for under 16-year-olds to have accounts on platforms including TikTok, Instagram, Facebook and X.
Social media platforms would be tasked with ensuring children have no access (under-age children and their parents wouldn’t be penalised for breaching the age limit)
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Do you think NZ should follow suit? Vote in our poll and share your thoughts below.
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84.4% Yes
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14.1% No
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1.5% Other - I'll share below
Have you heard about Wild for Taranaki?
Do you know what they are doing in our community?
Their Vision is:
Taranaki biodiversity is restored to a state where it is visibly healthy and provides significant benefit to communities throughout the region.
Tō tatou taiao – Maranga Papatūānuku is our collective commitment to reach a state where Papatūānuku begins to flourish and rise.
This is a very powerful vision for Taranaki as a region and those working in this space fully embrace this Kaupapa.
If you look at their website the first thing you see is our Mounga in the background with:
Take Part
The natural world is our legacy. Every day, action is underway to restore, enhance and protect our unique biodiversity in Taranaki. Be part of making biodiversity thrive in the region, To do this you can go to their Action Hub and sign up to support a project, there are multiple ways that you can become involved, from the gifting of shovels or offering a place for planting of natives, to offering your unique skills and experience to as well as perhaps Organisation know how. By signing up to the action hub you can become part of the bigger picture and make you mahi count.
So why should you be bothered? Let’s start a short list, How about for our kids and grandkids or even great grandkids – and the future world they will be living in. Or perhaps for our community and our own wellbeing into the future, or for all the native plants and animals that make our world a better more beautiful place.
We can make a difference. We can see the difference the trapping efforts have made, bringing more birdsong into our backyards and species like kiwi and kokako being established into areas that they have disappeared from.
This is ongoing mahi and the more effort the more success and you could be part of making this happen by looking to join and supporting the mahi of organisations like Wild for Taranaki. This is the type of project / volunteering that you can be involved with as often as you wish, so no regular commitment is required if that would appeal to you. It is also a volunteering opportunity that you could possibly do with multiple generations and the bonus is that it is an outdoors.
The next event that volunteers are involved with is the Community Snorkel Day – Experiencing Marine Reserves – this is on November 23rd at 12 noon. If you think that you could support this, please make contact.
Where can you learn more? If you are interested to learn more about Wild for Taranaki and their projects, you can listen to:
Volly Voices live on Access Radio Taranaki 104.4fm on Sunday 3rd November at 2pm when Danielle and Victoria chat about what is happening at Wild for Taranaki and the projects that they have and how volunteers can become involved and how they support the community.
This can also be listened to on:
Spotify open.spotify.com...
Apple Podcast podcasts.apple.com...
Access Radio website www.accessradiotaranaki.com...
Volunteering New Plymouth website www.volunteeringnewplymouth.org.nz...
Who can you contact?
If you are curious to learn more about what is involved and or how you can get involved then contact Wendy (Monday to Thursday) at Volunteering New Plymouth on 06 758 8986, Ph/Text: 022 571 4228 or Email: admin@vnp.nz. to take the next step
What's your favourite recipe for courgettes?
Kia ora neighbours. If you've got a family recipe for courgettes, we'd love to see it and maybe publish it in our magazine. Send your recipe to mailbox@nzgardener.co.nz, and if we use it in the mag, you will receive a free copy of our January 2025 issue.
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