GROW FOOD, SAVE MONEY?

Could growing your own, or better yet helping others to grow their own, be the key to addressing rising food prices?

- Can growing your own be the solution to high food prices? Meet the Canterbury gardener who says yes.

It could be argued that the idea of self-sufficiency has never held such widespread appeal as it does now. Between rising cost of living, inflation and supply chain issues, the notion that one could simply step out the door and get a few vegetables together for a meal – paid for not with money, but one’s own labour and time, and judicious use of sunshine hours

– is certainly compelling.

Besides this most obvious benefit, there are harder-todefine perks of maintaining a vege garden too. “Growing your own food has so many outcomes beyond the food that you get,” says Angela Clifford, CEO of Eat New Zealand, a not-for-profit collective of chefs, food producers and tourism operators working to connect more people to our land through food and progressing a healthy food culture.

“As our food systems become bigger, their ability to nourish us and provide good health becomes less. Even without the potential issues around food security and supply, growing your own is mentally, culturally and physically good for you. And now when the price of food is going up, I’d say if there’s ever a time that formula makes sense, it’s now. Access to good, healthy kai is going to become more of a priority than previously, so jump on now.”

Angela points out that whilst most people can see the connection between food and health, and buying into the systems as they are now is not sustaining them.

The question then, for those who want to sidestep the circuitous food system, could we really grow all our own food? As most backyard gardeners already know, selfsufficiency is a matter of degrees. How much work and time – and yes, interest – you put into your food-growing endeavour dictates how successful and self-sufficient you can and will eventually be.

And as all experienced gardeners already know, the size of your plot matters far less than the extent of your passion for working with the soil, and also for pursuing the necessary skills and knowledge that would allow you to make the most of it. (Yes, we’re looking at you, Auckland, because a lack of space and land is less a handicap than a lack of interest – a small urban section can be intensely productive once you acquire the skills and knowledge to make it so.)

As well, for an increasing number of food growers urban and rural, self-sufficiency for individual households is not necessarily the only path to independence from large supermarkets – or rather, they are widening the definition of self-sufficiency. As Angela explains, “I don’t think our family will ever be completely self-sufficient, but we are interested in the idea of community sufficiency, that

As most backyard gardeners already know, self-sufficiency is a matter of degrees. How much work and time – and yes, interest – you put into your food-growing endeavour dictates how successful and self-sufficient you can be.