Features

New Horizons

Author. Aaron McLean — 13/ 07/ 2021

There’s a lot of romance in being a pirate. Captaining a boat, risking your life with adventures on the high seas, long rum-soaked nights telling tall tales, challenging the powers that be… Nate Smith is a self proclaimed pirate — not here to conquer or steal, but through his enterprise, Gravity Fishing, he seeks to be part of the vanguard, modelling a path to artisanal, transparent and sustainable commercial fishing. He hopes to empower other fishermen around him to do the same and to give New Zealanders access to the best quality fish from their ocean.

New Horizons
Features

Seaweed

Author. Stone Soup — 13/ 07/ 2021

There are certain stereotypes about Maine that you come to expect. Men have beards, wear flannel, and live in cabins in the middle of the woods. Micah Woodcock, owner and primary sea vegetable harvester at Atlantic Holdfast, doesn’t disappoint. Especially with his wry sense of humour. “The Canadian tourists on the dock were grilling me about the seaweeds, asking me ‘what’s under the tarp on the boat?’ I told them I export most of the sea vegetables that I harvest to intergalactic markets. ‘Ya know, space stations, and other planets.

Seaweed
Features

Return to Parihaka.

Author. Angela Clifford — 29/ 08/ 2019

Kia whakatōmuri te haere whakamua: I walk backwards into the future with my eyes fixed on my past.

I’d never been to this part of the world before, I’d never sat under the gaze of the omnipresent Mt Taranaki. He is truly magnificent, in the most breathtaking way. It’s hard to understand how he could have lost a love battle against Tongariro for the beautiful Pihanga. He has my heart immediately. I couldn’t stop staring at him as we travelled down Surf Highway 45 towards Parihaka.

Return to Parihaka.
Features

Sovereignty, kai, and the land where we grow

Author. Dan Kelly — 29/ 08/ 2019

As the global movement for food sovereignty starts to gain momentum on our shores, Dan Kelly takes a moment to talk to Dr. Jessica Hutchings, a Hua Parakore (Māori organics) practitioner and author of ‘Te Mahi Māra Hua Parakore: A Māori Food Sovereignty Handbook’. While overseas versions of food sovereignty have focused on peasant rights and their ability to choose what food is grown and where, in the context of a colonised country, the use of ‘sovereignty’ has a different, more painful history.

Sovereignty, kai, and the land where we grow
Features

Urban abundance

Author. Stone Soup — 29/ 08/ 2019

Growing the future with Ella Rose Shnapp and Levi Brinsdon-Hall

In March 2017, just around the corner from Ripe delicatessen in Grey Lynn, we moved into an old villa that looked like it hadn’t changed since the fifties. All that was present in the yard was a large lawn space reminiscent of a public park and a quintessential backyard shed. The section is under a quarter acre in size and borders on seven other properties. Some have said a visit here is like a trip back in time.

Urban abundance
Features

The Farmer’s Daughter

Author. Stone Soup — 27/ 08/ 2019

I’m Gina. I’m thirty-three years old and the fourth generation to tend our farm on the lower foothills of Maungatautari, in the Waipā District. From my great-grandfather Jack and his brother Ted, and on to the current custodians, my parents, Neville and Louise, our family has worked the land for almost a century. Having recently come home to the farm after over a decade away, I’ve become curious about unpacking the role and representation of women on New Zealand’s land in 2018 and the implications for our food system.

The Farmer’s Daughter
Features

Head, hearts and hands

Author. The Next Meal — 27/ 08/ 2019

Will Bowman chats with James Millton

James and Annie Millton are biodynamic wine growers in Gisborne. Since the early 1980s they’ve been following their hearts, heads and hands, farming in a way that intrinsically respects the land they nurture. A rare thing in New Zealand now and even rarer 35 years ago. But Millton Vineyards & Winery is still here as one of our most respected producers; their soil is alive, their plants are healthy, and their wines are manifestations of the energy created by letting Mother Nature find her balance instead of forcing her hand.

Head, hearts and hands
Features

Weaving Community Through Food

Author. Stone Soup — 27/ 08/ 2019

Michael Reynolds explores food sovereignty and the potential of the commons.

The universality of food can invite a lot into our lives. When we take the time to think about the roles it can play – there are actually many! Food can provide us with the fuel and nutrition that we need to function at a certain physical and mental level, it invites cultural, emotional and spiritual richness into our lives and it also has political and economic significance, which has had an impact on the way we think, feel and talk about it.

Weaving Community Through Food
Features

What does it all meat?

Author. The Next Meal — 27/ 08/ 2019

Decoding the language around our meat labeling – Holy cow this took a while to write. I should have clicked earlier – Stone Soup was keen to include a guide for meat terms in Aotearoa because there isn’t really a guide for meat terms here – just a smattering of cloudy words, a lack of official standards and a whole lot of uncertainty that left me feeling more confused than when I’d started. I’ve sniffed around MPI welfare codes, SAFE, SPCA, meat producer websites and news articles to formulate the glossary below.

What does it all meat?