Heritage Plants at Koanga Institute

Koanga Institute is an organisation committed to the protection, conservation and development of NZ’s heritage food plants. What began as a desire to have a garden and orchard for a family based on fruits and vegetables that were adapted to the environment in which they were grown, has developed into an institute focused on saving New Zealand’s heritage food plants, including vegetable seeds and fruit trees.

Koanga has brought together New Zealand’s largest collection of NZ heritage vegetable seeds, fruit trees and berries, collected over a 30-year period. It has also become a practitioner, researcher and teacher of bio-intensive gardening for home gardeners, and has developed a range of educational courses that attracts students from around the world.

Koanga was founded in 1984 by Kay Baxter and Bob Corker at Kaiwaka in Northland. Kay could see that wild fruit trees growing along the roadsides and around the Kaipara Harbour were healthier and more productive, with far better tasting fruit than anything in her garden. She wanted to grow fruit in her environment without sprays or fertilisers, just as the wild fruit trees were growing.

Kay set out to collect these heritage fruit trees, along with their stories. Many of them at that time were on their “last legs” and dying or being cut down fast. That collection is still growing and includes collections from a wider area as Kay and the Koanga Institute moved around, finding a new place to settle.  In the process of collecting these trees, she realised she had not only saved the trees themselves but also the stories of the people whose lives they were part of. Kay and Bob had become a kind of repository for the social history attached to each plant.

Kay began saving New Zealand heritage seeds when she realised the vulnerability of being dependent on seed from countries in the northern hemisphere.

“We were simply acting on our gut feelings, however after 25 years of living with these seeds, of growing them in our food gardens, we have come to understand just how very critical they are for our future.”

Kay says ecologists tell us (and it’s easy to see) that life as we know it, depends upon diversity and integration. “If we only have 3% or less of our plants left, we’re not doing well and the implications are enormous.”

Kay says the seeds are our ancestors’ gift to us and are the most precious taonga.

March is the busiest time of year for seed saving and at Koanga, this is when they harvest and process all their new seeds. To make sure they are not reproducing weak plants, they discard any unhealthy or stunted plants and choose only good looking and tasting varieties to save the seeds from.

Selecting seeds for size and weight means only the most vigorous plants are re-grown for seed from the ‘mother seed’ so the plants get stronger and healthier with each generation.

After tipping the lighter seeds and other debris off the top, the best seeds get strained onto mesh and go into the dryer for a few days till their moisture content is only 10%.

The dried seeds also go into the freezer for a few days to kill off any bugs and then they are ready for storing in a consistently cool seed room.

In 2007 Bob and Kay moved off the Kaiwaka property and travelled around the country looking for somewhere to bring the garden and the now precious collection of seeds. In 2011 they moved onto around 90ha of land at Wairoa. The Wairoa property is now home to Kay, Bob and a group of gardeners, students, interns and apprentices.

Koanga Institute’s national organic seed collection stands at over 800 distinct cultivars, more than 80% of which are specifically NZ heritage lines, and all important for our future. The longer we spend with these heritage food plants the more we become aware of their importance, the stronger we feel about their value and the stronger the case becomes for the need to save them.

Koanga run multiple courses in regenerative living and permaculture. There is a range of options for anyone interested in living sustainably, designing their own lives and empowering change in their communities.

The idea is to impart knowledge and practical skills that will empower people to be more self-reliant and resilient in supporting their families and the local community.

What has become increasingly obvious to Koanga’s founders, is that seed saving and heritage tree growing is only the first link in the food and human ecology chain. Seed saving is just one aspect of the broader need to address our “human ecology” within an industrial culture.

Kay says the Institute has committed to developing a campus at 96 Kotare Road dedicated to:

•  holding heritage food plant collections
•  research into all aspects of “regenerative” living
•  sharing experience and knowledge

She says that through their earlier work with seeds and trees, they have come to the understanding that humans need a diet far higher in nutrients than we have had for several generations, that we need food that is more nutrient dense than what we can buy. The science of epigenetics makes it clear that our environment determines our genetic expression and that as we degrade our environment and the food we eat, this plays out in the degrading of our DNA and its expression. This has consequences both for our descendants and ourselves for many generations. Kay believes there is an urgent need to address how we nurture our health.

Kay and Bob have decided to place the Koanga Institute and campus within a charitable Community Land Trust dedicated to modelling “regenerative living”.

In May 2014, Bob and Kay embarked on a nationwide speaking tour to promote the work of the Koanga Institute and to gather support, encouragement and donations for securing the land at Wairoa.

For more information go to http://www.koanga.org.nz