Differently wired brains

By Mary Allan

“Neurodiversity describes the idea that people experience and interact with the world around them in many different ways; there is no one ‘right’ way of thinking, learning, and behaving, and differences are not viewed as deficits”.  This is the introductory sentence on the Harvard Education blog “What is neurodiversity?

However, unless we dig a little bit deeper that catch-all term doesn’t explain the glaringly obvious struggles some people live with or the subtle, hardly noticed nuances that make life very difficult for others.

While I applaud inclusive language and thinking, my experience as a specialist in the management of autism spectrum in schools tells me that despite changing the terminology every 30 years or so, we are still very short on understanding how to help neurodiverse people survive and even thrive in our society that caters to the less diverse majority.

Understanding what is going on for people – especially children – is the only way to inform strategies and systems to help them cope with life.

The shape of walnuts is similar to the human brain

  

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Mary Allan is a retired special needs educator who still maintains a focus on managing ASD and severe behaviour. She is a keen gardener, spurred on by the limited range of organic and GE-free foods in the supermarkets, and the need to provide gluten-free and dairy-free food for her family.

gardening calendar 2025 fundraiser

2025 Calendars for Sale

Our Calendars are back by popular demand. We have the sought after ‘N*de Gardening’ calendar, as well as a requested ‘Beautiful Gardens’ calendar (for those who prefer to hang a calendar that doesn’t get so much attention!). Both calendars include the moon phases.

Spring into Kōanga!

By Tanya Batt

Tanya Batt shares the story of Spring into Kōanga, a seasonal celebration on Waiheke Island. It’s one of the Kai for Community projects run by the Once Upon an Island Charitable Trust These projects focus on reconnecting with true seasonal celebrations and the stories and traditions around growing, harvesting and sharing food in the Waiheke community.  

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Egg time! 

It’s egg time. Many people often fail to make the connection between eggs, Easter and spring – kōanga. Probably because we celebrate Easter (a northern spring festival) in Australia and New Zealand in autumn.

However if you are lucky enough to have the company of a few chickens, that connection will come as no surprise to you. At this time of year you can be sure of an egg for breakfast. But for many of us, eggs (if you eat them) come from shops and shops always have eggs regardless of the season.

When we lose the connection between our seasons and celebrations, a vacuum is created and celebrations become superficial. Instead of connecting us to our environment, they become focused on what we can buy and how things look, and reverence is often diminished or lost. Upcoming spring Halloween celebrations demonstrate this perfectly.

ABOVE: Laying the tāpapa beds, Piritahi Marae, Waiheke Island, September 2024

September: Laying the tāpapa beds 

Here on Waiheke, we’re seasonally celebrating with Spring into Kōanga – a story in two parts.

The first part took place during September with the return of the pīpīwharauroa (shining cuckoo), in the māra of the Island’s Piritahi Marae, with the laying of the tāpapa beds from which will grow the tipu of the kūmara. These tipu (shoots or slips) will then be sown later in October or early November.

The September event was led by whaea Maikara Ropata, and kaumatua Eugene Behan-Kitto, a master kūmara grower who learnt his growing skills from the late Kato Kauwhata (Ngāpuhi), kaumata and inaugural chairperson of Piritahi Marae. The hope is to grow enough tipu this kōanga, for both the marae māra and other community garden groups, and activate island wide uptake of growing kūmara.

Growing stories and kākano (seed) for the hue (gourd) were also shared in an informal kōrero about this treasured plant – another early arrival bought by the tipuna of tangata Māori. When young, the fruit of this plant can be eaten but as a dried mature fruit it was used a storage vessel, musical instrument and taonga. The day finished with a kōrero given by Mike Smith, a climate activist who has recently won the right to take several large companies in New Zealand to court for failure to curtail their carbon emissions.

Kūmara was the first cultivated crop grown in Aotearoa. Its legacy as a primary food source of the people of this country stretches back several hundred years. The māra kūmara falls under the domain of Rongo-mā-Tāne, the atua of cultivated food and of peace.

October: Pumpkins, corn, tomatoes and more 

Our second event was held on the grounds of another of our community gardens – the Surfdale food forest – on 20 October. The programme included a talk about growing tomatoes with one of our green-fingered gurus, Eddie Welsh, seasonal kai ideas from the Waiheke Home Grown Trust, a spring posy competition, egg decorating and plant giveaways for the summer garden.

The focus was on two plants in particular: pumpkins and corn. Both plants originate from the Americas, their cultivation extending back thousands of years.

There are lots of traditions and stories associated with corn. In Europe, a ‘corn mother’ or ‘the old woman’ or ‘corn dolly’ was made out of corn (though corn was a generic word used for grain). The corn dollies were kept in the barn to protect the crops during winter, and then ploughed into the ground come spring to ensure a good harvest.

This tradition resonates strongly with another story of corn, which is told by a number of North American First Nations people from the eastern and south-western areas, where from the first mother’s body grew the first maize plants.

Attendees were given free pumpkin seedlings and corn seed, accompanied by a story and a song and were encouraged to bring their harvests to the Autumn Kai for Community Waiheke Food Festival in April 2025. The pumpkin seedlings were germinated by the students of the Waiheke Primary School’s Garden to Table programme. This programme was also the source of the pink popping corn seed that will be distributed for growing over summer, again culminating in a island-wide ‘pop-a-thon’ in autumn.

A primary focus of the Kai for Community programme is to excite and support families to grow food at home, fostering the green hearts and fingers of young children. Both Spring into Kōanga events have been generously supported by the Waiheke Local Board and are part of the Waiheke Island Climate Action plan.

The relationship we have with the land we live on, the food we grow and eat and each other are the cornerstones of wellbeing. Celebrating our seasons brings these three important things together and helps create healthy and happy hapori (communities).


Tanya Batt is a word warbler and seed sower living on Waiheke Island. Her two passions – storytelling and gardening – have found a happy union in the work she does as a storytelling gardener at a local school and through her role as creative director of the Once Upon an Island Charitable Trust’s Kai for Community (KFC) projects.

www.imagined-worlds.net

ABOVE: Tanya Batt with Chinese cabbage

Shai Magic

Raglan organic grower, compost maker, gardening educator and permaculture landscape designer Shai Brod shares his compost-making and spring gardening tips with Mynda Mansfield.  

Shai Brod

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Mynda Mansfield is a writer and long-time organic gardener who lives in Raglan. She runs a homeschool group for 12 children using Waldorf education principles, and has published a book called A Eurythmy Teacher’s Handbook.

www.myndamansfield.com  

Sliding into Spring 

By Setha Davenport

What does a ‘sliding scale’ price mean? I have been aware of this concept for years and had wanted to implement it in our business for several years as well, but had lacked the tech knowhow to create multiple prices for the same product until this winter.  

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What is a sliding scale? 

If you have not come across this beautiful format for allowing people to pay what they can afford for a product or service, it is worth looking into. Some might say that surely this isn’t a sound business decision? Won’t everyone simply choose the lowest price and leave you short-changed? Well, after a month of implementing this concept for our business, I can simply say, “No they won’t!”  

What we have found so far, is quite the opposite, and it is heartwarming to say the least. Before we go into the results we are witnessing, let me explain a bit more about the concept, and why we have chosen this for our business. Last year we DROPPED our seed packet prices across the board. What?! Why would we do that? We took all our seed packets and made them all $1 less overnight. That doesn’t sound like much, but when the total cost of a seed packet had been $4.00 that is a ¼ of the full price. The envelope printing and packing costs us $1.00 each so this was not a logical decision. It was one made from the heart.  

Photo: Felix Steckenborn, @phoenix_risenow

Deep connection with life 

We made this conscious choice after Cyclone Gabrielle, when we were clearly shown the power of community and our deep connection with all life and we wanted to give back. Give back for all the help we received then, give back to people who were struggling with the ever-increasing cost of living. We wanted to be part of the solution. Find a different way, a new model.  

I am indigenous. I am a seed keeper, I live with Nature, I am a part of her and I love her. I grow seeds and I sell them. I live with the land; I am part of the land and I own land.  

Merging Mother Earth’s teachings into business 

How can I take this bond with Nature and try to make a livelihood from her bounty? How can I be in these two worlds and find a way to blend them harmoniously? These are questions I often find myself pondering in the quiet and stillness of the night or while carefully tending a plant I want to see flourish. When I sit at my desk and tap on the computer keys to create ‘products’ for sale, I can feel very far away from the soil and seeds and the open air.  

I wanted to find a way to bring the reciprocity of nature into our business. I have long been inspired by my indigenous Cherokee ancestors and the way they lived for so long in harmony with Nature. How could I be profiting off Nature and still sustain this harmony? I see money as a resource, like compost or seeds. It is something we have created and when kept in circulation can help all. If we are open to a constant ebb and flow of money much like the tides or breathing and can trust that as it goes out into the world, it will flow back to us, I can see a more heart-centred, holistic approach to sharing the seeds. And that feels harmonious with Nature, with all Life.  

Photos: Setha Davenport

Making our seeds accessible 

We ultimately wanted anyone who desired access to high quality seeds for their garden to have them. This is very important to us. Always get in touch if lack of funds is standing in the way of accessing our seeds.  

So why have some of our prices increased this year? Well, we listened to some feedback. From customers, “your prices are too low! We know how hard you work and how much time, energy and money it takes to produce all the beautiful seeds. Don’t sell yourself short, invest in the seeds and your future.”  

So, we sat with that, and we talked more about having different prices for the same product. How we wanted people to be able to choose what they can afford. And despite having offered seeds at a reduced rate to low-income families over the years in our newsletter and mentioned on our website, we have not had a single enquiry.  

How does our sliding scale work? 

So please spread the word to anyone you know, who is struggling to afford seeds for their garden. The sliding scale is our updated take on helping to make seeds available to all, and at the same time allowing those who are more financially fortunate to support us and our small family seed business. Here is how it works. For seeds that we have a lot of or are easy for us to produce, we are offering multiple prices depending on what our customers feel they can afford: 

  • Low-income Price – Feeling strapped for cash, we’ve got you. Please pay this lower rate to make these seeds available to you and your family. ($3.00) 
  • Sustainability Price – This is the true cost to produce this packet of seeds. If this is what you can afford, please choose this price. In reciprocity there is balance. ($4.00) 
  • Support Price – Pay it forward. Are you secure in your income? Pay the price of 2 seed packets to offset those who are less stable financially. Thank you kindly. ($6.00) 
  • Generosity Price – Feeling flush, love what we do and want to give back to help us grow and flourish? Thank you very much, we are truly grateful. ($8.00) 

And the results?  

It is early days, but I can say with confidence, the majority of people pay the Sustainability Price. And I have seen enough people to put tears in my eyes, pay the Support and Generosity prices.  

It is a funny feeling to have that direct feedback that someone is choosing to pay more for a product and choosing to support you and your work. It puts a pep in our step and makes the long, sometimes gruelling days of self-employment seem more worthwhile.  

Interestingly, the same feeling can be had when someone chooses the Low-income Price. The feeling that we are helping someone gain access to high quality seeds for their garden to grow healthy food for their family is a very good feeling!  

This is the beauty of the system. When people rise to the challenge of choosing a price that works for them, and being honest with themselves about what they can afford to help the business they are purchasing from flourish, that is what happens.  

Opening to reciprocity 

I encourage any business contemplating a sliding scale pricing system to give it a try. It can be scary to make the shift, and fear or scarcity thinking can get in the way. Opening to the possibility of reciprocity in your work, your income, your livelihood… there is magic in this. It is the way forward to shift to away from scarcity to reciprocity and trust. Trusting that cooperation, not competition will make a better world and that people have big hearts and generally want others to succeed has been our experience thus far.  

I am feeling uplifted and supported heading into this new growing season, knowing we are growing more than just seeds, we are growing compassion, community and new possibilities. 


Setha Davenport has been growing food and seeds commercially for over 20 years. Featured in NZ Gardener, Good, Kiwi Gardener, Organic NZ, and Grow – Wāhine Finding Connection Through Food, she co-founded Setha’s Seeds in 2013 with a mission to see New Zealand heritage seeds flourish in Aotearoa and help gardeners and producers rediscover their magic, taste and health benefits. 

www.sethasseeds.co.nz  

Neurotoxic Pesticide in our Food

New Zealand children are being exposed to a brain-damaging insecticide, chlorpyrifos that’s banned in at least 39 countries. Alison White of the Safe Food Campaign investigates. 


In June 2024 the Safe Food Campaign presented an oral petition to the government’s Petitions Select Committee, asking for the urgent reassessment and ban of the insecticide chlorpyrifos, due to its harmful effects, particularly on babies and young children.   

A 2022 study found that New Zealand school-age children had levels of chlorpyrifos metabolites between two and seven times higher than their peers in the USA, Canada, Spain and Thailand.  

Very low levels, such as are found in food, can irreversibly harm the pre- and post-natal brain and pubertal development. Low-level exposure to chlorpyrifos has many persistent adverse effects on people’s health.  

We are what we eat 

Dietary intake represents the major source of pesticide exposure for infants and children. A number of intervention studies around the world have measured children’s urine, usually for organophosphate metabolites or breakdown products, before and after eating organic food over a period of time, and mostly the results have been dramatic and immediate. A useful example of this is a short video on YouTube about a Swedish family: The Effect of Organic Food

The US Environmental Protection Agency concluded in 2016 that chlorpyrifos in food is unsafe for all populations. They calculated the highest risk is for children aged 1–2 years old, with exposure levels 14,000% above the safety threshold for food. At least 39 other countries have banned this pesticide, including the UK, Canada and the 27 countries in the European Union. The UK made it illegal to use chlorpyrifos on any crop in 2016. The US eventually banned its use on food crops in 2021. There are safer alternatives.

Long-lasting and widespread harm 

The United Nations international review committee classified it as a persistent organic pollutant (POP) in 2022 because of its persistence, bioaccumulation, potential for long-range environmental transport and adverse effects, particularly on young children at low levels. It is a signal to all countries to no longer use this pesticide. 

New Zealand’s Environmental Protection Authority (EPA) has not prioritised the reassessment of chlorpyrifos, in spite of well-documented evidence of its neurotoxic properties showing persistence and harm, not only in children’s bodies, but also harm to the New Zealand environment. Adverse effects have been found in bees, for example. It has also been found in our water, soil, sediment, crops, air, and in remote areas like the Southern Alps, Antarctica and Arctic. 

What can we do? 

The obvious choice is to buy organic food, and even better, grow some of your own food. Eating organic and homegrown means we lessen our exposure to the cocktail of chemicals that are frequently present in non-organic food grown in a system of industrial agriculture.  

This chemical cocktail may include substances that cause cancer and endocrine disruption (have an effect on the hormones in the body). No safe level for these effects has ever been scientifically established, and very little is known about the impacts on health of consuming multiple pesticide residues.  

By choosing organic food you are also supporting a system that does not pollute the environment. It is well established that organic agriculture helps to mitigate climate change, and is more resilient in droughts and floods. 

Who’s most at risk? 

We are all at risk of harm from chlorpyrifos, but particularly at risk are babies in the womb, infants and children right through puberty.  

Which foods have chlorpyrifos residues?

A number of recent New Zealand government surveys have found this insecticide in a wide range of food, including: 

  • Raisins 
  • Peanut butter 
  • Anything containing wheat 
  • Frozen mixed berries 
  • Grapes 
  • Tomatoes 
  • Avocados 
  • Pears 
  • Mandarins 
  • A range of summer fruit 
  • Broccoli  
  • Various green vegetables
  • Baby food.  

Safe Food Campaign 

For more information, including references, download the Safe Food Campaign’s full submission from this page on their website. 

Sign up to the Safe Food Campaign’s newsletter via their website.  


Alison White is co-convenor of the Safe Food Campaign and a life member of the Soil & Health Association.  

Photos: iStock/Liudmyla Lazoryshyna/merc67

Tribute to Hazel Berryman

Soil & Health would like to honour and thank the late Hazel Berryman (1922–2023) for her generous bequest. She was a life-long gardener and a member of the Soil & Health Association for decades. Her family has supplied the following tribute.

In Memoriam Hazel Rachel Berryman 1922–2023 


Hazel Berryman was a life-long gardener who believed in two cardinal credos: ‘you are what you eat’ and ‘eat food that goes bad, but eat it before it goes bad’. With these two credos, Hazel lived to the ripe old age of 100.   

As a committed gardener, Hazel believed in composting and the importance of healthy soil. In her 20s she was an early member of the Auckland Compost Society [later it became the Soil & Health Association].  

From the knowledge gained, Hazel and her late husband David turned the clay of their West Auckland home into a small Garden of Eden, growing copious flowers, fruits and vegetables. At the same time, they transformed the barren landscape through many plantings of native and some exotic trees, creating a refuge for many birds.   

Hazel won many awards for her flower arranging at the annual Auckland Floral Shows, and took part in many community tree-planting events, particularly in Auckland’s Grafton Gully and Mount Smart Domain.  

The Compost Society magazine, later Soil & Health magazine, and more recently OrganicNZ, always held a prominent position on her reading couch, and it is for that reason that Hazel wished to leave a small legacy to the Soil & Health Association.  

Facts About Flour – The Grist On Wheat Flour

Traditionally, wheat was a protein and vitamin-packed staple chiefly used for grinding into flour and making bread. Theresa Sjöquist investigates how it is grown and processed in New Zealand today and details its composition and effects on our health.

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Theresa Sjöquist is an author, speaker and freelance writer based at Port Albert. www.theresasjoquist.com

The Significance Of Degrees

The single biggest influence on an organic garden is temperature. As Dr Charles Merfield explains, a comparatively minuscule variation can have dramatic consequences.

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Dr Charles ‘Merf’ Merfield is an agroecologist who heads the Biological Husbandry Unit Organics Trust Future Farming Centre, consults and advises in sustainable agronomy and is co-owner of Physical Weeding. See merfield.com

Soil & Health Association of NZ Logo

The rise, reasoning, and role of Soil & Health Association of NZ

Historian and Soil & Health NZ’s councillor, Matt Morris, chronicles the
genesis of Soil & Health Association of NZ Inc., and the impact we have
made on organics in New Zealand.

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The Soil & Health Association of New Zealand (publisher of OrganicNZ) formed in 1941 as the New Zealand Humic Compost Club. Since then, the organisation has changed its name several times, always responding to the issues of the day and the need to stay relevant. It became the Organic Compost Club in the 1950s, the Soil Association in 1970, and finally the Soil & Health Association of NZ in 1987. Of course, it is likely the name will change again in the future, certainly the organisation is undergoing significant change right now.

But when we think about the future of Soil & Health NZ, it can be helpful to understand more about the past. What were the key drivers behind the formation of this organisation, and is there anything we can learn from them? To understand this, we really need to look at least as far back as the 1920s, if not further. In brief, a number of matters were causing significant concern in New Zealand (Pākehā) society, and throughout the British Empire after the traumatic years of World War One. People had gained the idea that the world was fragile.

This fragility was characterised in numerous ways, chief among them being a belief that the declining birth rate was a reflection of declining virility: the idea of ‘racial degeneration’. Suspected causes of this included that food quality had declined. At the same time, it was becoming all too clear that farming practices were, in some places, leading not only to extensive biodiversity loss, but also to soil erosion.

During this period, Sir Albert Howard, Director of the Institute of Plant Industry in India, perfected the Indore compost heap – a scientific advance of considerable importance in India. His initial findings were published in his The Waste Products of Agriculture (1931) and reiterated in more popular form in An Agricultural Testament (1943). His publications reached a wide international audience and unquestionably influenced discourse in New Zealand. His work was paired with Robert McCarrison’s claims about causes of apparently perfect health in the Hunza people by G.T. Wrench in his The Wheel of Health: A study of the Hunza people and the keys to health (1938). Howard continued to join the dots between declining human health and declining soil fertility, while his solution – compost – would correct both of these and stabilise eroding soils as well.

In New Zealand, a dentist by the name of Dr Guy Chapman founded the Food Reform Society in 1922, looking to improve the eating habits of New Zealanders. The following year, Forest and Bird began its activities – focused initially on forest loss and its impact on native fauna. While the aims of these two organisations may seem dissimilar, during the 1930s they started to coalesce around the same theme: soil health.

The subject of soil health, and particularly soil erosion, became topical during this time in New Zealand as in the rest of the Empire. The Esk Valley floods of 1938 resulted in excessive and devastating silting in the valley, followed by ‘dust bowl’ conditions the following year. This stimulated much cause for reflection: forest clearance for farming had wreaked havoc – a situation that had been predicted back in 1913 by the Royal Commission on Forestry led by ecologist Leonard Cockayne. Forest and Bird’s publications included content on soil erosion and Lance McCaskill, a mouthpiece for the organisation, promoted this message more widely during the 1940s.

It is little surprise, then, that someone in New Zealand would want to promote Albert Howard’s innovation. That person was Guy Chapman, who had founded the New Zealand Food Reform Society, and who, since then, had also formed the New Zealand Women’s Food Value League (1937). And it is also little wonder that his New Zealand Humic Compost Club would draw in avid Forest and Birders, like Yeo Tresillian Shand whose pamphlet The Crime Against the Land was a kind of Bible for the early composters.

The timing was also incredibly consequential for the longevity of the new movement. In 1941, the British Empire was losing the war – Dunkirk had just happened (1940) and German physical prowess was contrasted against pasty, unhealthy looking Brits. The eugenicist obsession in Germany prior to the war – captured in the phrase Blood and Soil – was seen as one reason for their success in dominating Europe so quickly once war broke out.

More importantly, the New Zealand Government predicted possible food shortages on the Home Front, given so much primary production was being redirected to supporting American troops stationed in the Pacific. This resulted in a range of measures, including the Dig for Victory campaign, which encouraged householders to grow their own food. But the war also meant imported phosphatic fertilisers were not available; the logical result being the promotion of composting as a way to build a physical virile population by ensuring home-grown veggies and fruit would be nutritionally sound. Guy Chapman became the national chair of the Dig for Victory campaign, and the Government produced official gardening guides that promoted Albert Howard-style hot compost heaps. It may seem extraordinary to us now that the Soil & Health NZ’s origins involved such a high level of Government endorsement – even leading a government programme – but without this history it is quite possible that the movement would have died out not long after the war ended in 1945. While Albert Howard had hoped his compost would reform farming throughout the Empire, actually his message was mostly picked up by home gardeners who ensured his enduring legacy.

At some point in the 1950s, the Compost Club changed its name to the New Zealand Organic Compost Society. The word ‘organic’ in this context was at the time something of an innovation. The name change hinted at a key change in the movement – from being ‘compost-minded’ to being ‘chemical-free’. The post war period was awash with new chemical products and messages about ‘scientific’ and labour-saving approaches to gardening that the composters naturally reacted against.

In 1970, the New Zealand Organic Compost Society changed its name to the Soil Association, drawing a direct connection with the British organisation of the same name, founded in 1946 by Eve Balfour, author of The Living Soil (1943), who was also Patron of the New Zealand organisation.

By now the earlier openness of the movement had closed down somewhat: organic and chemical gardeners found it difficult to see eye to eye. However, this horticultural cold war started to thaw somewhat in the early 1980s when it became apparent that organic farming was gaining traction internationally. At this time, the Soil Association’s focus shifted from being a series of organic gardening clubs to promoting a vision for a commercial organic farming sector. It may be a surprise to learn that Federated Farmers were the first organisation to bring together practitioners and researchers of organic farming. Perhaps it is a bigger surprise to learn that it is far from clear whether the certification programme we now know as BioGro would have got off the ground without this early support from Federated Farmers and significant input into the wider organic movement from the then National Government and the neo-liberal Fourth Labour Government that followed.

A critical figure at this time was Bob Crowder, whose Biological Husbandry Unit (BHU) (founded on a micro scale in 1977) at Lincoln University provided research and demonstration muscle not previously available in this country. Neither should we forget Chris and Jenny May, who along with Dave Woods (and Bob) really got BioGro off the ground, or Perry Spiller who worked tirelessly to bring in much needed funding to extend the impact of the organisation. For example, Project Gro (Giving to Research in Organics) raised over $50,000 for the BHU alone, and funded an Association Education Officer.

By the late 1990s, Soil & Health NZ turned to protecting this still young commercial organic sector from the spectre of genetically modified organisms, as well as the ongoing risks of spray drift from conventional farms and other chemical users. Meriel Watts (author of The Poisoning of New Zealand, 1984) was appointed Association Director, while Brendan Hoare became President in 1998. In 1999, the Green Party developed a confidence and supply arrangement with the Labour Government and Soil & Health NZ won contracts to establish new initiatives funded through that agreement. One of those ultimately became the certification organisation OrganicFarmNZ, while another focused on developing edible gardening in the school curriculum. Once again, the organisation had official backing.

Not much later, Soil & Health NZ spearheaded the Organic Federation of New Zealand, which later became Organics Aotearoa New Zealand – a peak sector group that could liaise directly with the Government on behalf of member organisations. An outcome of this collaboration is the Organic Products and Production Act, which became law in 2023. Once again, Soil & Health NZ played its part in representing the interests of consumers and small growers in the consultations.

What lessons can be learned when we review our own history? One is that our core message – that human health depends on soil health – never gets old. It is as relevant now as it was in 1941. Another is that Soil & Health NZ has had some tremendous successes. It is incredible to think that composting has become an embedded practice for so many directly due to the hard work of those early compost advocates. We have supported the creation of organic certification programmes underpinning our organics industry and our lobbying has been successful in keeping GMOs out of New Zealand’s environment. Our work has led directly to the Organic Products and Production Act, enshrining key principles of the sector in law.

But above all, it is the hard work and generosity of our passionate members and volunteers that stands out in this incredible, rich history. We have the power to continue making an important and much-needed impact in our country, so, if you’re not already, now is the time to get involved! Please join us in Wellington at the Organic Futures Symposium, the OrganicNZ Awards, and of course our critical Special General Meeting.