Doing it ourselves

The year 2022 appears to be starting with very positive front page headlines for making NZ a better place to live. Long may it continue!

Firstly a boost to Iwi housing and now a way of beating inflated shipping costs while helping to save the planet, through producing fruits traditionally grown in warmer countries such as Australia, Mexico, Philippines, etc.

With inflation already at officially 4.9 per cent and in reality closer to 6 per cent, the ability to grow our own food means NZ can cut back on importing tropical produce, save on shipping costs and carbon emissions arising from them.

It is, and always has been, in NZ’s interest to be as self-sufficient as possible and we should be taking heed of Indigenous conservational traditions and the DIY inherited from our colonial ancestors who arrived with virtually nothing. We need to make greater use of our resources. For example, coal mining is a dirty word but we are importing dirtier coal at increasingly high shipping costs. We have oil but Government chooses to close down our one refinery to import refined fuel. What happened to the DIY? More houses could be built from “stamped earth”, local bricks, NZ concrete, NZ aluminium, steel etc. Our once locally produced tar for roading is now imported. Why? And at what cost? Our logs are transported to China and back again as timber. No wonder roading and construction is so expensive!

Our milk, produced by millions of methane gas-emitting cows, could be diversified into higher value products than milk powder, which has used billions of litres of water to produce milk and is then exported with water sucked out of it. Surely we can do better than this. Locally grown and specialist products may be a few cents / dollars dearer due to smaller market, but when consideration is given to climate change issues and better employment opportunities, it is a no-brainer.

Marie Kaire Ngararatunua