A scholarship plan to transform Taranaki food bowl
Five new scholarships are on offer to help people study organic horticulture, with the aim of transforming the food landscape in Taranaki.
WITT horticulture tutor Carl Freeman started out his career in fine arts, then discovered gardening, and had kept his hands in the soil ever since.
He’s keen to help others do the same, and the five scholarships on offer will cover the $3000 fees for the Level 4 Organic Primary Production course. It would run one day a week so was flexible enough to fit around people’s lives, he said.
The course was for anyone seeking a new direction and lifestyle, whether to fulfil personal goals with their own garden, or with business aspirations in the science of organic growing for community or commercial gardening, Freeman said.
The scholarships came about through a new partnership with the Bashford Nichols Trust and the Bishop’s Action Foundation.
Foundation chair Simon Cayley said the new scholarships were a trial run to “test the waters” and assess demand, and there could be more offered in future.
He said the trustees were interested in sustainable farming and it was also an opportunity for the trust to form a relationship with WITT.
“We see it as a beginning. We’ll test it out with five scholarships and hopefully if the interest keeps coming, we can scale up the scholarships too,” he said.
Freeman said many of his students were older adults changing careers. “There’s a lot of ‘ mid-life crisis’ people coming and doing the course, people who already have a lot of other skills already. They’ve learned how to garden at home and they think, can I transform this into a job.”
Chairman of the Taranaki Farmers Market and well-known for his enterprising urban and community agricultural projects and his leadership and expertise in encouraging local food production, Freeman said the scholarships fit neatly alongside a growth in horticulture in the region.
Venture Taranaki’s Branching Out project had already identified that organic produce was in demand, so knowledge of organic crop production would be an advantage. With all the work that is happening with the Branching Out project, we need more people to bring that vision into being,” Freeman said.
“Among the high-value medicinal crops identified and being trialled by the Branching Out program, our research has indicated that organic plant material is likely to command a premium,” Branching Out project manager Michelle Bauer said.
The deadline to apply for a scholarship is May 31. For more information, contact: C.Freeman@witt.ac.nz