Source: Radio New Zealand
Joseph, Patrick and Abraham Land with the bullock team RNZ/Sally Round
Their story was intriguing: no tractors or cellphones, off-grid, subsistence and organic, relying on hand and bullock-power rather than fossil fuels to feed three generations of 25 people off a slip of land bounded by bush on the banks of the Whirinaki River.
So, with not a small measure of excitement, I found myself driving along a bumpy track leaving behind the main road through South Hokianga to meet the Land family.
Hmm – very timely, I thought, given the surging fuel crisis.
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“Part of our ethos here is to see how many people you can feed off a small piece of land,” Joseph Land told me as the family gathered in a cosy room lined with books and pictures.
“A policy of ours, or a value, is that once you start using fossil fuels, you actually use up more calories than you produce. So eventually that’s not going to sustain the world.”
They had motor vehicles “to stay integrated” but did not need fuel to farm, they explained.
The family’s Catholic faith and respect for Māori knowledge and values also infused their way of farming and living, Joseph said.
Catherine and Joseph Land in their home RNZ/Sally Round
As members of the Catholic Worker Movement – founded in the 1930s out of the Great Depression – helping the poor and marginalised, farming communally, and pacifism, were principles they worked by.
Heavy farming work was done by a team of four bullocks, and Archie and Buster, two Clydesdale horses.
The rest of the work to feed four households – from about six hectares – was done by hand.
In a paddock over the river, a crop of maize stands tall, almost ready for harvest.
One of Joseph’s sons Abraham hitches up his team of bullocks to lightly till the soil of a bare strip nearby for planting lupins – good for nourishing the soil after the potato harvest.
“When I first got into bullocks, I thought two would be enough, and when they were about four years old, they weren’t really pulling as much as I wanted, so I got a couple more, but they kept on growing for another two years. There were six before they stopped. And so now I’ve got much more power than I need.”
The bullocks are named Gordon, Cob, Fergus and Fingle RNZ/Sally Round
The bullocks at work RNZ/Sally Round
Abraham drives the bullocks which are hitched to a disc harrow, lightly tilling the soil for a crop of lupins to nourish the soil after harvest RNZ/Sally Round
The Lands grow olives and a variety of fruit and vegetables, graze a few sheep and cows, make their own butter and rely mostly on their staple maize crop which they kibble and grind for bread and porridge.
A few things are bought in like wheat flour, sugar, tea and coffee, with money earned from part-time work off the farm.
Daughter-in-law Marissa, for example, works as a nurse, to pay for extras for her household.
“Two days a week gives us more than enough money, bit too much money – to live off.”
She enjoyed being part of the community and said the family was anxious not to be seen as survivalist or “exclusionary”.
With homeschooling her three children, cooking, gardening and helping build their new cob house, with husband Patrick, it was busy 24/7, she said.
“It’s very physical. Yeah, it is. And there’s never a moment in which your job is done. There’s always something you think, ‘oh, I could, should, probably be doing’.”
Patrick Land – in the foreground – is constructing a cob home with the help of his brother-in-law Andy RNZ/Sally Round
Patrick and Marissa are building a house made of cob and are using horse power to mix up the material needed for building RNZ/Sally Round
The Land family’s roots here were laid by Peter and Judith Land who bought a block of bush in the 1970s.
Joseph’s parents had been teachers in Fiji and were inspired by their life in a Vanua Levu village to recreate a similar subsistence style of living, alongside their Catholic faith.
“Dad was a visionary, not practical,” Joseph said, pointing out a photo of his late father who lived here into his 90s.
He did, however, set up a power source from a nearby waterfall. Now the Lands have solar power for lighting and biogas and wood-fired ranges for cooking.
Marissa shows me how she grinds the maize by hand using a Corona mill after it is kibbled – the kernels removed from the cob – at another hand-powered machine in the farmyard.
Marissa grinding maize for bread using the family’s Corona mill RNZ/Sally Round
Lucia grinds the kibbling machine which removes the kernels from the cobs RNZ/Sally Round
The corncobs are stored in elevated storehouses nearby, like small hutches on stilts.
“They were everywhere in Hokianga, every farm had big gardens, small herds of cows, like 10 cows, big gardens, pig sties and lots of corn for animals and people,” Joseph said.
Store houses used to store maize are based on a traditional design RNZ/Sally Round
He arrived here as a boy and remembered when the roads were much quieter.
The local kaumatua taught him gardening skills including the knowledge needed for growing kūmara. He nurtures several heritage varieties on his kūmara tāpapa.
“You get really attached to the different varieties.
“I learned all this from the last gardens in Whirinaki in the ’70s. They vanished within five years, but I just got a glimpse of the lifestyle. So, a lot of this is just copying what was everyone’s experience here up until the ’70s.”
Joseph has a kūmara tapapa and sprouts many heritage varieties RNZ/Sally Round
Joseph and his wife Catherine have seven grown children, four of whom have remained on the farm.
“It was very hard to get rid of me out of the valley,” Patrick said. “I did travel a little bit, but I just always wanted to be back here. Yeah, I find it very hard to be somewhere where you’re just eating food that you don’t know where it’s come from.”
The pumpkins have been harvested and maize is next, then it’s time to lightly till the soil and plant lupins to tide it over winter RNZ/Sally Round
Joseph is regarded as a kaikarakia among the local people, leading blessings and prayers and spending a lot of time at the local marae.
He told me the Land family acknowledged the mana whenua of the local hapū, and that the Lands stayed here by their goodwill.
“I think the big thing is having a mindset, this is our base economy, our life here, and so it’s real. What we grow we really depend on.”
Life was “full and rich”, however he acknowledged “come a disaster, we can go and get money and buy food”.
“So, in that way, we’re not as real as a peasant farmer in other parts of the world who don’t have those other options. But we don’t avail ourselves of that option. We don’t need to. We continue here. The average wage to us is enormous.”
The Land family are able to feed 25 people and more from six hectares RNZ/Sally Round
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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
