In 2022, we are working on the implementation of our Paddock Development Project, a raft of integrated new enterprises that will create a huge range of opportunities in our paddocks, for greater food production, education and training, community engagement, biodiversity and carbon sequestration, and job creation.

This includes:

  • doubling our vegetable production (or more!), with a new Market Garden space
  • planting 300+ trees, including fruit trees, natives, and support species
  • integrating our sheep with these trees in a silvopasture grazing system
  • introducing a rotating flock of 100 pastured layer hens

To us, this represents a vision of our food future - community-centred, human-scale, diverse, ecologically-regenerative farming for nourishment, not commodity.

Industrial, fossil fuel-dependent monoculture farming is devastating our ecosystems, our health, and fuelling the climate crisis.

We urgently need a radical transformation of our food system. We need to visualise and create models that show us a different way forward. At Kelmarna, we have a unique opportunity to demonstrate these models in the heart of Aotearoa’s biggest city.

Read on to find out more about our plans and how we got here!
Our Plan​

Market Garden

Starting at 300m2, we plan to create (at least) 600m2 of new market garden, using regenerative no-dig, diverse plantings to grow an abundance of vegetables and feed our soil microbes to sequester carbon at the same time.

The market garden will create a new job opportunity for a new farmer to join our team as Market Gardener, starting May 2022.

This production-focused space will enable us to demonstrate financially and ecologically-viable market gardening, and train future farmers in the skills they need to replicate this, through our Farmhands programme, workshops, and other volunteering opportunities.

We plan to run our Market Garden as a Community Supported Agriculture scheme (read on to find out more about this!), which will enable our community to continue to be heavily involved in this adventure for the long term.

Our Market Garden space will be significantly enlarged over winter, with the first CSA expected to begin in summer 2023.
Silvopasture

Silvopasture is an agroforestry approach that combines trees and grazing livestock in a symbiotic relationship. We think most farms should have more trees and agroforestry systems have a huge part to play in transforming our food system.

Most of the animals that we currently farm evolved to live in open woodland or forest-edge environments, rather than open fields. Our plan involves planting diverse strips of fruit trees, natives, and support species, in and around each of our paddocks.

Trees provide a huge range of benefits for animal welfare, moderating the microclimate to buffer extremes of heat, wind, cold, and rain. They also provide additional food for the animals, including important minerals that they are able to bring up from the subsoil.

Their deep root systems make good use of excess water in our wet winters, while retaining moisture in the landscape through our increasingly dry summers.

Our tree lines will transform our paddocks from 2-dimensional to 3-dimensional, capturing more sunlight to maximise photosynthesis and carbon sequestration, creating habitat for wildlife, and food for humans and pollinators.
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In return, our sheep and chickens will cycle nutrients through their manure to provide available fertility for the trees.

Most of our tree planting will happen around August 2022.
Sheep

Our sheep form a key element of the system, supporting healthy nutrient and water cycling for the pasture and trees, as well as maintaining the grass at a suitable height for our chooks to thrive in it.

We manage the rotation of our grazing animals with the aim of ensuring that our pasture is continually in its growth stage, when plants are pumping the most root exudates (carbon) into the soil, to feed soil microbiology and sequester carbon.

Including sheep in the system allows us to produce pasture-fed meat for our community directly from a source where they can be certain that it has been produced in the best way possible, using agroecological methods that prioritise the health of the animals and the wider ecosystem. The first step in transforming our food system is building transparent and trusting relationships between farmers and communities.

To find out more about why, and how, we include animals in our farming system, please click here to head to our Farming Animals page.
Chooks

Our paddocks will also be home to a flock of 100 layer hens (with the first 32 having arrived in March 2022), in mobile hen houses that will be moved to give access to fresh pasture every couple of days.

Following a few days after the sheep leave a paddock, the chooks peck through their manure, finding bugs to feed themselves, reducing parasite populations, and spreading the manure around, while also contributing their own.

Their pecking and scratching also creates spaces for new seeds to germinate, boosting the diversity of the pasture.

The varied diet of insects, greens, fungi, and more will mean the chooks produce eggs packed full of flavour and nutrition.

Our aim is to develop towards a truly regenerative model for egg production, using our perennial crops, waste products from our community, and insects we grow on-site to reduce our dependence on industrial grains grown elsewhere, and choosing heritage breeds that will thrive in these low-input systems.

We plan to make our eggs available through a Community Supported Agriculture scheme, that reflects the reality that eggs are a seasonal food, with peaks and troughs during the year.
What is Community Supported Agriculture?

Community Supported Agriculture (or CSA) is a partnership-based farming model where community members and farmers work together to grow and share food.

CSA members commit up-front to buying a share of the farm’s harvest for a period of time, essentially clubbing together to employ a farmer to grow their food for them.

Members receive a box of fresh veggies or eggs each week, but accept that they are sharing the risks as well as the rewards of the CSA - when conditions are good, everyone will receive a bountiful harvest, but in the case of adverse weather or crop failure, members accept that they will each receive a little less.

The CSA model has many benefits for farmers and members:
  • Secure funding for the season ahead
  • Shared risk
  • Community members connect more closely with their food, and what’s truly in season
  • Community members connect with each other through the scheme
  • Minimal marketing/sales time, meaning we can focus on growing food
  • No production food waste resulting from unsold food
  • No packaging waste, from displaying or transporting food
  • and more!
The Story So Far

History, design, and consultation

The paddocks around Kelmarna’s gardens have always been part of our site, and mostly used for grazing livestock, but we haven’t always had the time to give them a lot of love to reach their full potential.

Since 2015, we have built up the capacity of the organisation so that we are now ready to take a big step up, and bring the paddocks into much more active and productive use in daily Kelmarna life.

In 2020 we worked through a large number of options for how we could put this land to good use and best achieve our strategic goals.

We settled on the design outlined above, combining veges, trees, and animals, in an integrated system.

In late 2020, we held a consultation event with our close community and key supporters, and put this vision out to our wider community for feedback as well.

Our plans received overwhelming support from our stakeholders and wider community. The process provided opportunities to engage in great conversations with our community, valuable constructive suggestions, and many generous offers of support in realising these plans.

​​You can read the consultation documents that were presented here.

Crowdfunding campaign

In November and December 2021, we ran an ambitious crowdfunding campaign to raise the funds to get all these projects underway.

The campaign invited members of our community to adopt an element of the project, whether that is a chicken, a garden bed, or training for a new farmer.

We were absolutely blown away by the response from our community and new supporters, with an incredible $96,500 donated by 489 people!

Along with key grants towards start up costs of these projects from Foundation North, Auckland Council, Waitemata Local Board, and Mazda Foundation, these funds have enabled us to make significant strides forward already, with major progress on all aspects of the project to come before the end of 2022.

Beyond the financial support, this incredible display of support and community engagement is inspiring and means a huge amount to our team in creating Kelmarna's future. Thank you!