Regenerative, agro-ecological agriculture, organic and other low impact sustainable farming systems are often dismissed as backwards or a highly romanticised fantasy — particularly by multinational chemical agriculture companies with a vested interest in maintaining an industrial system. In reality, these low-impact methods of farming are rooted in the realities of local climate and culture and provide promising models of resilience. Agriculture has been stripped out of its lively ecological context and turned into a chemical mechanistic process.
Exploring the aftermath of the Green Revolution — a sophisticated mechanism to produce and consume food driven by fossil fuels, regenerative organic agriculture presents an elegant, under-recognised opportunity to stabilise the climate. Yet it is rarely discussed as a viable solution to systems not resilient to the repercussions of the global climate crisis. Covid-19 has already exposed the vulnerability of the global food system and it’s imperative upon our policymakers to reimagine the system. Predictions otherwise are catastrophic.
The arrival of the pandemic has shown our ability to survive radical adaptation when the need is perceived as urgent enough. Imagine what we could do for the climate if we were to create a thriving network of rural farms and urban gardens.
Organic Market Garden Auckland, farming in the city
Consider, for instance, Organic Market Garden (OMG), a biodynamic farm in Auckland Central that grows more than 26 edible plants on 310 m2 of growing space, sequestering atmospheric carbon in the soil, harvesting nitrogen from the air, protecting the soil from erosion, and providing habitats for beneficial insects. The garden is supported by City Rail Link and collaborates with community groups that have transformed the current Symonds Street Junction. More than a dozen people donate their time to OMG weekly, initially supervised by Levi Brinsdon Hall, who from October 2018 to late 2022 spent over 700 hours transforming the site into a thriving urban sanctuary it is today, and afterwards by Jake Clark, from 2022 to September 2024. Following Jake’s departure, Levi is to be back as the garden manager through his organisation Delicious Revolution.
OMG’s long-term aim is to create carbon-sequestering pollinator sanctuaries — an urban farming network, a local community garden for every 1 km, all over the city with the goal of improving access to quality chemical-free produce and achieving food security. OMG is a case study that demonstrates producing food differently is possible. Agriculture, positioned at the intersection of food and climate, presents a unique opportunity that, unlike the current focus on yield, considers livelihood, agro-biodiversity and climate resilience. As Levi Brinsdon-Hall has noted — “We create gardens and teach biological growing not only because it’s what we love doing, but because we see it as a solution to the issues we fear, food insecurity, biodiversity loss, climate breakdown, global insect depletion. We direct the emotion we feel from the weight of these problems into creating and inspiring change”.
Levi Brinsdon Hall, the modern gardener
And Levi is passionate! Watching the videos he began during the 2020 lockdown was invigorating. You learn a lot. He has studied Fine Art and Geography at the University of Auckland and is well practised in permaculture, organic farming, seed propagation and seeds saving, alongside his partner Ella Rose Schnapp.
Levi realised his love for seeds in his final year of Art School, coordinating a workshop project called “Being with the seed”, it was here that he met Sarah Smuts Kennedy. Learning about biodynamic seed propagation, energy systems and seed politics, he had afterwards the opportunity to bring home vegetable food seedlings. And that’s how he started his first garden. “I took home a whole load of tomato, pumpkin, and corn seedlings and grew my first garden”. It was during this time that he met his partner, further breathing life force into his passion for gardening. Ella helped him direct his creative energy into growing food, soil, gardens and community. Learning and creating together fed their knowledge on farming regeneratively and producing nutrient-dense food at a large scale. For Levi, growing food, saving seeds and caring for the land is the story of humanity, and creating a garden is a model for change.
An employee at OMG for four years, and later an advisor, Levi supervised the garden, organised the volunteers and managed relationships with suppliers, sponsors and customers — either members of the public or hospitality establishments. Chefs love working with OMG’s produce, harvested moments before delivery is fresher and that affects the taste — for many growers, flavour is quite far down the list of requirements when supplying to say, supermarkets. And with all the knowledge gathered, Levi started his own regenerative agriculture organisation, Delicious Revolution, and became the head farmer of Maara Fresh, the community horticulture project of Manurewa High School in South Auckland, from August 2023.
Diversity in regenerative farming
The (not so) secret of Levi and his team in producing greater food volumes in the least amount of space is simple—grow more species. Through permaculture practices, they created a system complementing Nature’s way, constantly enriching the soil. The more they give to the soil, the more they receive. And this has nothing to do with fertiliser.
Put simply, plant leaves capture the energy of the sun and transform it into sugar through photosynthesis, flushing it into the dirt through their roots, feeding microbes, bacterias, fungus that in return produce minerals and nutrients nourishing the plants. As with everything on this Earth, this is a synergic relationship. With each species comes different types of roots, feeding a specific group of microorganisms. So to feed a diverse range of soil microorganisms, and by extension produce more minerals for the plants and building healthy soil, retaining water, building hummus, you need a wide range of plants—large lasting crops, cover crops, annuals or evergreen, the more diverse you cover your land, the better. As Levi explains, “What we do is grow food at a greater scale and a greater density, with diversity as well. It’s basically biological farming that not only grows really good food for us — healthy, nutritious food — but also grows really good food for the soil and really good food for all the pollinators.”
This topic is more relevant than ever. OMG offers a template for agro-diversifying and bringing climate resilience to the agri-food system. But how do you go about starting a garden from scratch? Whether on a large scale, a small corner with sunlight or trying to rejuvenate a forgotten planter box, Levi abundantly shares tips on social media. Below are some gems that offer a creative approach to growing your own food—at home.
Learn. Volunteer at your local community garden. Other people's knowledge is a never-ending source of inspiration. If you are in Auckland, come to volunteer at OMG. The garden is a teaching hub and they are always looking for volunteers to give a hand. Also, don’t be afraid to start your own garden, Ella and Levi learned by doing.
Never till, fork or dig into the soil. In regenerative gardening you want biomass to accumulate, build soil matter, not to bring to the surface what is supposed to live under. By moving the soil, you also risk bringing up seeds that will then compete with your own sowing, making it difficult for your veggie garden to thrive.
Grow in rows. Fitting in a multitude of crops, in one metre wide rows. This is wide enough to easily come across with your legs, without doing the splits!
Grow tight and diverse. Plants will be healthier and more resilient, indeed resistant — it’s also more fun according to Levi! Basically, in your garden, you want to see plants, not soil. If you have no idea with which species to start, below are some companion planting rows taken from OMG. Works for late summer, early autumn.
— Camphrey, white clover, celery.
— Beans, basil, aubergine, jalapenos, spring onions, radishes.
—Beetroot, flat-leaf parsley, spring onions, alysum that attracts beneficial insects, then again beetroots, carrots, spring onions, carrots and Kohlrabi (Six species over a metre wide!).
— Corn, daikon, marigold, rocket, lettuce, coriander, aubergines, cucumbers.
Plant many cover crops. Designed to cover the soil, a variety of cover crops increases soil diversity, reducing pests, weeds and feeding other plants. Cover crops also prevent water and soil from running off. Easy to grow, annual, cover crops are planted according to season and desired outcome, to create biomass, nourish pollinators or fix nitrogen. They are here to provide even more resilience to your regenerative garden. Learn more on Stone Soup Vol.10.
Harvest for the long game. Learn the best practice harvesting to increase production. For long-lasting celery, keep the plant in the soil, and harvest by stripping off the outer celery leaves, stalk by stalk. Putting your fingers inside the stalk, pushing through the bottom and pulling the stalk with the other hand, for a clean cut. To keep the crops healthy, a regular wave of compost will help keep the harvest season longer. Here is a selection of cover crops advised by Levi in Stone Soup Vol.10.
Regenerative, agroecology farms and advocacy groups in Aotearoa, New Zealand
Like Organic Market Auckland and Levi’s initiatives, there are many forces of change in Aotearoa, New Zealand, working towards developing and demonstrating that another, more sustainable and ethical food production system is possible. Some of these micro-farming places and organisations are located in urban environments, others are based in the countryside, off-grid. Here we collect all the names we have discovered over the years.
Awhi Farm Centre for Sustainable Practice, Tūrangi.
Established by Lisa Isherwood on some of her family’s Māori land of twenty-six generations, Awhi Farm Centre for Sustainable Practice is a 4.5 hectares site, tucked at the feet of Mt Tongariro and Mt Pihanga near Taupo. The land was originally covered by three-metre-high blackberry, gorse, broom, cotoneaster and more. In Te Reo Māori, Awhi means to embrace or care for. And so that is what Lisa and her small team do, taking care of their land, the people who help them and the local community—Lisa created and implemented the Ka Ora, Ka Ako | Healthy School Lunches programme at the local school, a healthy lunch initiative dedicated to providing daily healthy lunches to the kids, through a garden to kitchen scheme, with organic, fresh food harvested at the Māori school garden. This initiative teaches the young ones how to produce food, following the Māramataka calendar and Te Ao Māori principles, in addition to how to prepare this food and what a resilient, secure food supply looks like.
At Awhi farm, Lisa, her team, and many volunteers have worked through the dense existing vegetation since March 2010, establishing organic gardens and food forest orchards within the bushes. According to anyone who visited Awhi Farm, healthy food grows everywhere there, from an abundance of vegetables and herbs such as lettuce, onion, kale, mushrooms, and mint to over a hundred fruit trees. There are also beehives, hens and a stellar composting system, including latrine management. The farm is completely sustainable and totally self-sustaining, minimally reliant on outside resources such as water or electricity from the main grid due to their solar electricity system. To know more about the work, follow the Awhi farm here.
Aotearoa Permaculture New Zealand, Aotearoa, New Zealand.
This was our entry point into the world of permaculture and agroecology, and it did shift our views forever. Aotearoa Permaculture New Zealand (APW) is an educational organisation which aims to nurture and support transformative lifelong learning journeys, focusing on ecology, systems, design, empathic inquiry, social innovation, and appropriate technology. A passionate team who, since 2008, has been nurturing global thinking, promoting local action, empowering individuals to be the change they wish to see in the world and providing quality permaculture education and resources. Aotearoa Permaculture New Zealand’s mission is to inspire and empower local living cultures, cultural transformation and lifelong learning. Prior to Covid-19, the teaching was based in Tāmaki Makaurau, Auckland, but the team is now rebranding and working on a new national program. Their unique training will be available soon to many more people. If you need to start somewhere, it could be through APW.
Heritage Food Crops Research Trust, Whanganui.
Founded by Mark Christensen and located in Whanganui, The Heritage Food Crops Research Trust is composed of a group of volunteers—from experienced growers practising organic gardening techniques to seed savers building a seed bank within the organisation, with the common goal of growing food through heritage, highly-nutritious seeds. Sourcing rare plant varieties of fruits and vegetables, the trust has mainly focused on specific varieties of apples, tomatoes and beans, engaging in scientific analysis, accessing the natural compounds present in these varieties, and demonstrating their medicinal properties in improving human health, preventing and treating diseases.
The Heritage Food Crops Research Trust also collects beans, carrot, wheat, kumara (sweet potato), kale, plums, prunes, pears, peaches and feijoas. Moreover, the organisation distributes seeds, seedlings and propagating materials to the general public, specifically communities, marae and educational groups seeking a disease-preventing, healthy diet in the region, and partners with nurseries, orchards, and seed-savings groups locally and internationally.
Kelmarna Community Farm, Tāmaki Makaurau, Auckland.
We have profiled Kelmarna Gardens on our website many times, as we often lived in their vicinity and could eye-witness the evolution of the land. A legacy community garden with over forty years of existence and a rich history, Kelmarna Community Gardens Trust was originally founded by Paul Lagerstedt, who secured the 1.7 hectares land lease from Auckland Council, to create a self-sufficient urban organic garden. Located in the heart of Tāmaki Makaurau, Auckland, the gardens went through several subleases and management groups, until 2015 when the original trust charity took over to set the space into the path it is today—an urban, regenerative food production implementation that is climate change resilient and promotes community wellbeing. The Kelmarna Community Farm aims to demonstrate how urban farms hold a major role in providing access to healthy, local and sustainable food, reducing transport and waste.
Under the general management of Sarah McFadden, supported by a team of four permanent staff, many more volunteers and financially supported by sponsors, Kelmarna features interconnected farming operations, including food production and sales. The land is split between a productive market garden area, a food forest growing fruits and other edibles, a regenerative farm with bee hives, sheep and chickens integrated to a silvopasture system, and a community composting system collecting food scraps. In parallel, the space is used for educational purposes and community activations, through an array of holistic activities: gardening and food workshops for the public and volunteers eager to learn new skills and make connections, school visits, therapeutic gardening programs supporting people facing mental health hardships or that are intellectually challenged, diverse events and other harvesting celebration to connect with Nature’s cycles. Kelmarna Community Farm also runs an earth-and-mortar food shop and a CSA vegetable box program, selling the production of the land, improving access to affordable, organic and locally grown food.
There are so many more! Forrest Hill Community Garden; Kai Rotorua; Koanga Institute; Little Pirongia Farms ; Lux Organics; Mangarara Farm, Mangaroa Farms, a project from the Biome Trust; Opensource Syntropy; Papatūānuku Kōkiri Marae; Pākaraka Permaculture, we interviewed Niva and Yotam a couple of years ago; PermaDynamics; Roimata Food Commons and the documentary about their work; Seeds For Pala; Soil of Cultures; South Kaipara Good Food; St Johns Food Forest, the project of our friend Ellen Eskildsen which we interviewed last year; Tāmaki Urban Market Garden; Te Maara Kai O Wirihana ‘Maara Fresh’, another of Levi’s projects; Tomtit Farm; Urban Jungles by Mark van Kaathoven. To be continued.
The figures and places of the regenerative, agroecology farming movement in the world
Other examples of small-scale productive farming combined with critical ecosystem services, in addition to the people behind them, can be found not only in Aotearoa, New Zealand, but on every continent and various countries*, as public-funded or private initiatives. What follows are just a few of many protagonists and places of change practising the integrated approach of permaculture and agroecology.
AFRICA
Siti Makame, Tanzania.
What makes Africa’s permaculture movement super unique is the fact that it’s being advanced for the most part by and for the most vulnerable. Women. In Tanzania, the impacts of climate change severely exacerbate the challenges women face as primary food providers. Makame, an agricultural extension worker, became the first resident of Pemba Island to be certified in Permaculture Design. She now works with women across the island to address food security using home-scale permaculture techniques. To date, she has trained over 150 women throughout 20 communities in the design and maintenance of small-scale permaculture gardens.
ASIA
Bija Vidyapeeth, Earth University Navdanya Farm, India.
Tucked in the Doon Valley of Uttarakhand in the foothills of the Himalayas, the headquarters of the Navdanya “nine seeds” movement and global organisation created by Dr Vandana Shiva thirty years ago, is a place of excellence for organic farming and biodiversity conservation. The movement champions sustainable agriculture, biodiversity, food sovereignty and the rights of small farmers, particularly women in India and globally. Established between 1996 and 2001, the farm is a meeting point for people willing to learn, study, save seeds and promote symbiotic, agroecology, organic farming in their regions and countries. The Centre includes a seed university, a seed bank, a soil ecology lab, an education and training facility, promoting a scientist-farming relationship based on farmer wisdom to grow nutritious, organic food. Spread over 45 acres, the centre conserved “more than 2500 different species of crops and multipurpose plants, which include 700 paddy varieties, 205 varieties of wheat, 15 pulses, 11 varieties of Barley, 10 varieties of Oats, 7 varieties of mustard and several millets, vegetables, green manure, pulses, spices, vegetables and medicinal plant varieties”. Bija Vidyapeeth is a living working farm promoting an economy of care where students and workers grow, harvest, preserve, cook and clean, serving the community. They also practise meditation and gratitude. Have a look at the farm through this 2014 video.
EUROPE
Arthur Motté, Belgium.
Now 22 years old and an airplane pilot (!) Motté's passion for gardening began at age 7, inspired and educated by a close friend, and now fuelled by the belief that empowering others to grow food, to cultivate within our community will mitigate the impacts of climate change. In his own space, vegetables are planted tightly—there is celery, cabbage, beans, cucumbers, squash along a fence. His insistence on self-education of Permaculture Design techniques and ecological growing systems led to some form of underground celebrity status. Motté wrote an excellent guide, “Mon petit Potager Bio Sur 15m²”, translated in French, Dutch and German, inspiring anyone in an urban or suburban environment to grow food and, if outdoors was not an option, a how-to for bringing the natural world indoors.
Pierre Rabhi, France.
Pioneer of the 80s agroecology movement in France, the late Pierre Rabhi was the creator of “Oasis en Tous Lieux” [an oasis in any place] and then later from the 90s—the ‘Mouvement Colibri’. He supported agricultural practices respectful of others and the Earth, accessible to anyone, including the most disadvantaged, while safeguarding our food inheritance. An author, farmer and environmentalist, Rabhi was also the president of Terre et Humanisme and a vice president of the Kokopelli Association, which works to preserve biodiversity. Beyond France, Rabhi commenced numerous overseas agricultural development programs in Morocco, Palestine, Algeria, Tunisia, Senegal, Togo, Benin, Mauritania, Poland and Ukraine.
Martin Crawford, UK.
Founder and Trust Director of Agroforestry Research Trust, Crawford has dedicated over 30 years to organic agriculture and horticulture. The Trust — an educational and research organisation was founded in 1992 though by 1994 had acquired 2 acres via the assistance of Dartington Hall Trust which is where the first demonstration garden was planted. Three years on, a further 8 acres was leased allowing as trial ground for fruit and nut crops. And then in 2011, Crawford acquired more land where he established two small-scale forest gardens as templates for domestic gardens. Motivated by implications of climate change, Crawford also developed a greenhouse garden to establish what we can grow if temperatures, as predicted, rise by 5°C—his belief is that all our growing systems should be storing carbon. Plants and soil are currently the only effective way of taking carbon out of the air.
NORTH AMERICA
Jean-Martin Fortier and Maude-Hélène Deroches, Canada.
Farmers, educators and authors, the pair have empowered legions globally thanks to their award-winning book, The Market Gardener, and now their learning centre, the Market Gardener Institute, the fruit of their 20 years experience as farmers. Together, they reimagined human-scale food systems promoting the pursuit of lifestyle cultivation via organic and biologically intensive cropping practices. Located in Quebec, their internationally recognised 10-acre micro-farm, Les Jardins de la Grelinette, is one and a half acres of cultivated permanent beds that grossed a cool $100 000 per acre with operating margins of about 60 per cent.
Ron Finley, U.S.
Famous for years, the self-proclaimed Gangster Gardener radicalised gorilla gardening across his own South Central Los Angeles community, or as Finley refers to, a “food prison”. Since 2010 he has grown community gardens and food forests in vacant lots around the wider Los Angeles. He wants to make cultivation “sexy” and “gangsta”—growing food, creating urban forests and building beautiful soil. His online gardening MasterClass had launched at the same time as a national craze for gardening and an outrage over police violence and systemic racism in the US, which brought a whole new audience into his important narrative. His message? Empowerment through growing food.
The Bronx River Foodway, U.S.
The only edible food forest in New York City, located inside a city park in South Bronx, the Bronx River Foodway is a pilot project in partnership with the Park and Recreation New York City’s department, also involving dozens of community-based, non-profit and business organisations. Coordinated by the Bronx River Alliance, the project’s aim is to revive the creativity and imagination of people, reconnecting and motivating the community to use land within the city to produce resilient food resources, in addition to protecting, improving and restoring the Bronx River corridor. The food forest produces a diversity of edible and medicinal food, including kitchen herbs, a diverse range of vegetables, some echinacea, chestnut trees, U.S. native berries, and more.
Oko Farms, U.S.
Another New York city-based project, Oko Farms is a low-tech aquaponic, urban farm and education centre, originally based in Brooklyn. Their mission is “to promote aquaponics as an ecological farming method that mitigates the impact of climate change and increases food security for urban residents while demystifying aquaponics through awareness and education”. Their growing techniques are adaptable and accessible, rooted in symbiosis and integrated pest management systems. They use fish waste as fertiliser, and feed the fish with a diet of produce harvested on site. Oko Farms grows a diverse range of vegetables, herbs, medicinal plants and flowers. Crops include cabbage, onions, leeks, carrots, sweet potatoes, lemongrass, cilantro, millet sorghum, okra, peas, peppers, tomatoes, indigo, cosmos, marigolds, lemon balm, marshmallow, and more. And they logically have fish and freshwater prawns. Their farming system allows them to be moveable and change site if required. They are currently looking for a new place to install their facilities!
SOUTH AMERICA
Andrea Leia and Nathan Uyeda, Argentina.
This couple believe that permaculture, regenerative agriculture, biodynamics and deep ecology are what connects us to the land — that nurturing ourselves, growing food, regenerating the soil and preserving Earth’s biodiversity, reconnects us with nature, and to one another. Situated on a half acre of native forest, much of their work is dedicated to producing heirloom seeds—housing a seed bank of more than three hundred and consider it an act of love. What connects us to our past and our future. And part of that is an understanding that much of their work involves heightening awareness regarding our food systems,via talks and workshops.
As per our Aotearoa, New Zealand list, I will keep feeding this worldwide farms and people registry. If you know other farms, communities or individuals producing healthy food outside of the modern, mainstream agricultural system scope, either in Aotearoa, New Zealand or somewhere else in the world, please do reach out and we will add them here.
*continents are listed in alphabetical order
Creating a productive food garden is an immensely liberating practice, one that has led Levi and his partner to try new foods, experiment and share. Either at the individual or community scale, growing and producing healthy, nutritious, resilient food is something that is not impossible, quite the opposite. All over the world, people are doing the work successfully. Despite the constant misinformation of tech and pesticide-based Big agriculture, agroecology CAN deliver at scale, and all of these farms and initiatives above prove it. Let’s all remember that the monoculture, mainstream, corporation-based food production companies do not aim to feed people but to feed their revenue stream and control food access. So go forth, plant cover crops, volunteer in your local community garden, harvest for the long game, live the self-sustaining dream. With the outside world now reduced to a weekly visit to the supermarket, that could soon be your backyard.
A version of this article was first published on the 2021 Autumn Issue of Sage Journal
