What will we be eating?

It is only recently that our dietary choice has expanded to the dazzling array of possibilities it is today, yet how quickly we come to take this for granted. Whatever was in existence when we were born, we assume is normal. So moving our bodies around using cars that run on fuel sucked out of the ground, living in ever-larger houses, buying our food from big box stores, are things we have come to expect. And woe-betide anyone who dares challenge our "right" to all this.

We live in an age where our nourishment can be measured by its food miles. Did you know that on average every calorie of food uses 10 calories of oil to produce and bring it to your table. Based on a considerable amount of research, I suggest that this is not sustainable. To put it simply, there will come a day when we will, out of necessity, see a substantial growth in locally produced organic food.

"While the use of oil dominates the production end of the food system, electricity (usually produced from coal or gas) dominates the consumption end. The oil-intensive modern food system that evolved when oil was cheap will not survive as it is now structured with higher energy prices. Among the principal adjustments will be more local food production..." - Lester R. Brown, Plan B 2.0: Rescuing a Planet Under Stress and a Civilization in Trouble

Does this mean we will be forced to live on local potatoes and puha, and won't have all those refined and processed industrial foods that we have come to enjoy so much? Perhaps there is a middle road between these extremes. We are a creative species, and will probably find all manner of ways of using the resources we have to provide a diverse, interesting, and healthy diet.

Here on Waiheke we are off to a good start. There are lots of individuals, and several groups, who have this future clearly in their sights. These people are actively supporting the locally grown food option. The Waiheke Seedsavers group has been meeting for seven years and has a small but diverse bank of heritage variety seeds - those from plants that have developed, evolved and proven to do well in our local soil and climate. Then there is the more recently established Community Garden and the Food Exchange stall at the Ostend market. The Food Exchange stall is based on the observation that there is an abundance of food which, if not shared with others, will go to waste because it tends to come on suddenly and for a short season. So people bring their excess, and exchange it with others.


This Saturday (Dec 2nd) from 1:00 to 5:30pm, there is a workshop being held, on suburban permaculture. If you have sensed that growing some of your own food might be a good idea, but you don't know where to start, this workshop is for you. Robina McCurdy and her partner are coming up from Golden Bay to do some work with another group of people Publishon the island and they have kindly made their time available for this. They are highly qualified but their approach is very accessible. You will learn how to use the principles of permaculture and apply them to small suburban lots. The afternoon will include slides (lots of examples to get your imagination going) and time looking at Steve and Sophia's home on Ridge Rd. You will get to exercise the planning process, so when you get home you can dive into your garden with some greater confidence. For more information on the workshop, call James on 372 8737 or Steve and Sophia on 372 6640.

Imagine Waiheke

In a world where 1,000's die daily due to a lack of fresh water, where women poisoned by Depleted Uranium are giving birth to "jelly fish" deformed babies, and resource wars are raging across the planet as world leaders seek to gain control over finite resources, we are incredibly blessed here on Waiheke.

We live here in good health, in a culturally rich, highly tolerant society. While we sometimes see things differently, there are sufficient things we all hold dear, that hold us together. We recognise this island as a rare treasure, with its clean water, mostly unpolluted earth, and sparkling oceans. We may also sense what a resource-full island we live on, with abundant water and land, a benign climate for humans and plant life. And a population of people with varied skills and talents, people with big hearts, with vision, with money, and a desire to leave our children a world they can grow and blossom in.

There are signs that people are sensing a need to transition quickly into a more nurturing relationship with the planet which sustains us. What that means to each person is their own unique journey, which begins when we recognise our part in creating the reality we live in. Everyday I see people discovering new, fun and exciting ways to become part of the change, and cocreating a sustainable future together. People are finding their gifts and bringing them to the table to share them. Change comes about by numbers of us acting differently, and it starts with one, and if we can't do it here on Waiheke, where else?

The cornerstones to our successes will likely include communication, innovation and experimentation, supported by the necessary economics which can be both conventional and alternative. A good starting point maybe to stock-take all the talents and resources we already have here on the island. Then we can get going on the juicy stuff, like designing the types of energy production that would work best on the island. Wind and solar are immediately possibilities, while we keep an eye on developments in tidal energy systems. Septic tank collections can be taken to a bio-digesting plant to harness the gas while the waste is being properly composted. There are some great off the shelf plants available, and the Waiheke specific research is already underway.

Transport solutions are exciting because there are so many good options to choose from. Naturally we want clean convenient public transport. Imagine a fleet of efficient bio-diesel minibuses and couriers combing the island's arterial routes complemented by cabs that get people to those routes and cover after hours needs. With cycle racks on the buses, and less cars on the road, cycling would become realistic for many more people. If we get local energy production pumping on the island then electric vehicles become more viable. At the Imagining the 21st Century events in the cinema last year, a whole new model of ferries was spoken about, that could take commuters to different destinations on the island – further reducing the need for road transport.

This kind of talk whets my appetite, so where is the local kai which is so essential in good times and bad? What about getting a license for the sale of locally caught fresh fish – it's been done in Lyttelton. The Saturday markets are an immediate asset for enabling trade of local production, and the food exchange stall will soon have outgrown the Ostend Hall.

Imagine an increase in apiaries and a few decent flocks of free range chooks. And we could be harvesting all that local edible seaweed for my gomashio. Why, I'll bet there's even salt out there. To support food production ventures a fund could be built for micro lending. A 500 member food club investing $1,000 each will create a fund of $500,000. This could also be created by 500 people acting as guarantors for a loan from Prometheus Ethical Finance could manage the fund. A local currency would be a great addition.

These are just a few ideas, big and small, immediate and long term. Greater regional self reliance impacts big global problems while making our community a more secure and enjoyable place to live.

This article has been co-written by James Samuel and Laurence Boomert.

Life, Money and Illusion

"'Life' refers to the biological processes by which living things maintain themselves over time. 'Money,' to the present economic ideology which says that as long as the volume of money changing hands increases, all will be well. 'Illusion' refers to the fact that these two perspectives are directly opposed in terms of how they would solve current problems." - Mike Nickerson.

The previous article reffered to the mechanisms of our economic system, and why it is degrading our society and our environment. Here are two examples of responses to the challenges we face. The first is a personal account from a trip that I made with Kim, my life partner, to the Kufunda Learning Village in Zimbabwe early this year. The second describes Willits, California and why they are gaining worldwide respect for their efforts at localisation.

Zimbabwe is a country in crisis. The four day petrol queues are one obvious manifestation of an economy on its knees. Inflation was 740% per year, leaving the poor to fend for themselves. Now imagine 700,000 people - made homeless last year in a government mission known on the street as "The Tsunami." Bulldozers were used to clear entire shantytowns forcing people to move out into the country. Unfortunately after years of colonisation and reliance on large scale commercial farming, they have minimal tools for this new life.

Step in the Kufunda Learning Village. A group of a dozen passionate Zimbabweans working to demonstrate and teach self-reliance: Composting toilets ensure nutrients are not wasted but used to grow fruit trees. A substantial herb garden and processing room allow healing ointments and solutions to be made for their people who live with a 30% HIV infection rate. Bee hives bring offer wax for some of their ointments, and honey. A pre-school is getting a rammed earth building erected, and the teachers are taking care of the children admirably. There is a large kitchen with efficient wood-fired cooking facilities. The library boasts books on subjects ranging from food growing to geo-politics. Dwellings and meeting rooms have been made using earth bricks and local thatch. Permaculture style vegetable gardens and young fruit trees offer greater food security. And a local currency based on hours of time is being traded in their broader region.

With the environmental, social, political and economic landscapes changing ever more quickly, people everywhere are looking for ways to organise to meet our needs locally. The Kufunda community has made amazing progress over four short years, while simultaneously assisting half a dozen other communities in their country, to do likewise. The persistent feeling Kim and I shared was that we were being given a glimpse of how our society may look as cheap oil becomes a thing of the past, along with the artificial or temporary affluence it has given us. We are most grateful for their examples.

The progressive community of Willits can best be described by the projects it has begun. Due to space constraints I had to omit half of the list, some of which we are already doing on Waiheke. The City of Willits has voted “Yes”, to the building of a solar (photovoltaic) array to offset the City of Willit's electricity usage. A Vehicle Share Demonstration Project is intended to provide a model for a citizen-based transportation in which a variety of vehicles, each serving a different need, would be purchased, maintained, and shared by a number of residents. A Barn Raising Project gets people from the community to help out on projects previously submitted (by anyone in the community) - such projects could include such projects as the home repairs of an incapacitated resident. The School Gardens Project involves siting and creation of teaching gardens at the schools within the area.

Many people in the US have been inspired by their efforts at localisation and self-reliance and are engaging with others to give birth to their own localisation solutions.

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Is raw capitalism the best possible outcome for our well being? Or can thousands of diverse, locally-rooted, grassroots economic projects form the basis for a viable democratic alternative to capitalism? What really sustains us when the factories shut down, when the flood waters rise, or when the paycheck is not enough? In the face of failures of market and state, we often survive by self-organized relationships of care, cooperation, and community - Dollars and Sense by Ethan Miller

The next article will look at Waiheke initiatives as we seek to find ways to respond to the challenges of this evolutionary moment. Please contact me (jms@ihug.co.nz 372 8737) and tell me about your projects.

Hey Honey, they shrunk the money!

Looking at the bright new shiny, and shrunken, coins I wonder if any one else notices how much they have devalued? The new copper 10c piece looks remarkably like the 1c coin we used to have – except it now has an additional zero on it. Is that how much value the money has lost, and why?


Money is issued by commercial banks at little cost to themselves and then lent to people and businesses against interest – the money creation process is essentially an entry into an accounting ledger. Because money is loaned into existence against interest, and interest is not created ahead of time, there is always scarcity of money. Thus, in order to have enough money to be able to pay the interest required, more loans need to be issued. A larger mass of money leads to a gradual loss of value of each monetary unit. Hence the house that cost $40,000 when 1 cent pieces were common now costs $400,000.

I hear the cry: "It's too complicated – how are we to understand these serious and complex economic issues, and if we did what could we do about them?" We quickly pass on the responsibility to others who know better – after all they work in our best interests, no? A paragraph in David C. Korten's latest book "From Empire to Earth Community," answered this very succinctly for me.

"These financial games [money creation, interest bearing loans, manipulated interest rates, financial speculation, and more] contribute nothing of value to the larger society. They do, however, significantly increase the buying power of the ruling elites and their claims on the real wealth of society relative to the claims of those persons who contribute to the creation of that wealth by producing real goods and providing real services. They are the most successful of financial cons because the mechanisms are invisible and the marks—the object of the con—rarely realise they have been conned. Even if they were to recognise they have been conned, there is nothing they can do about it because the con is both legal and culturally accepted."

As shocking as that can sound, we see it all around us. Many of the productive people in our community, are living on incomes similar to what they lived on 10 years ago when our money bought much more. Now almost everyone is working longer hours, taking less holidays, or part of a two income family – just to maintain the same standard of living, if that.

The picture is the same in most countries across the planet, and in a globalised world we are not isolated from the world economy.

"Today the world is run by three of the most secretive institutions in the world: The International Monetary Fund, the World Bank, and the World Trade Organization, all three of which, in turn, are dominated by the U.S. Their decisions are made in secret. The people who head them are appointed behind closed doors. Nobody really knows anything about them, their politics, their beliefs, their intentions. Nobody elected them. Nobody said they could make decisions on our behalf." – Arundhati Roy

In order for national and international banks to justify issuing more loans, economic activity needs to expand, or more areas of life need to be monetized. But this growing economy is gobbling up natural resources and producing lower quality goods. It is leaving many people without the necessities of life. Unfortunately this grand experiment in economic growth will never self-regulate, because then the interest-based money system will fail.

As I was writing this article a friend informed me that the New Zealand national debt – to "overseas entities" – at the end of December 2005 was running at $33,000 for every man, woman, and child in the country. At 5% interest and 2.4 children per family that's $7,260 of an average family's taxes going offshore in the form of interest before we even begin to pay for governmental services!

Despite facts like this, and David C. Korten's somewhat bleak conclusion in his quote above, I am not so certain there is "nothing we can do about it." However, it will surely take considerable intention, based on first understanding how the present system operates, and then through cocreating and evolving new models which work. It is a bold task, and we can't know all the answers before we begin, but if ever there was a time to step up and be agents of the change we wish to see, it is surely now.

Coming in the next article (28 September): Models of exchange and mutual support.