Humans have mastered nature like no creature before us. While other animals wander around like idiots looking for food, we can grow it wherever we want it. Take me, for example. Over the last year, I've raised six mandarins, some chillies, 13 tomatoes and three potatoes. My dog Colinhasn't grown anything.
Silly as it may sound, I am proud of my six mandarins.
There is something primal about growing food. You feel more in touch with nature. Even if it's one fruit plant on a 6x4m inner-city balcony. According to Fresh Facts (a Plant & Food Research publication), New Zealand produced 124,113,636 mandarins in 2020. If I'm proud of my six mandos, those growers must feel incredible.
My friend Donny and his wife Nicola grow blueberries. I asked him how they feel about working with the wonders of agriculture.
He said: "We feel great about it. We have two farms, Mill Creek Orchard and Motueka Berries, with 24ha in production between the two. We pick between 250 and 300 tonnes a year, and this season is going to be one of our larger ones. Nicola, and I are proud to be producing such a healthy product that so many Kiwis can enjoy."
They should be very proud. Three hundred tonnes of something as delicious as their blueberries makes the world a better place. My potato crop last year came in at 272 grams. New Zealand as a whole produced 533,030 tonnes. Aotearoa is a fertile place. We grow more food than we can eat. In 2020 we exported $87,630,000 worth of apples, $2,533,600,000 kiwifruit and $1,910,000,000 wine. We have mastered nature - or have we?
In his book Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, Yuval Noah Harari claims plants domesticated us and not the other way round. He points out that 10,000 years ago, wheat was one of many wild grasses in a tiny part of the Middle East. Now it covers a surface area 10 times the size of Great Britain. In areas such as the Great Plains of North America, where not a single wheat stalk grew 10,000 years ago, you can walk hundreds of kilometres without encountering any other plant.
New Zealand in 2020 exported $2,533,600,000 worth of kiwifruit. Photo / File
According to Harari, wheat has become successful because it has us working for it. For 300,000 years, Homo sapiens lived a comfortable life, hunting and gathering. One day we came across wheat, and everything changed. We stop wandering around and began cultivating it, investing more and more of our time into this one plant. A much larger portion of our day than we had ever spent on food. Humans stopped everything we were doing and went to work for wheat. Breaking our backs, clearing rocks and weeds and fighting off blight, rabbits and locusts. We lugged huge amounts of water over large distances to feed the wheat. A few hundred years after meeting wheat, humans were doing little from dawn to dusk other than taking care of it.
Wheat is now the most widespread and successful plant ever to live. Its genes must be stoked. Wheat conquered the world, but humans did all the hard work.
Thanks to the two centuries of technological advancement humans are back in charge. Today most New Zealanders spend no time cultivating wheat. Unfortunately, with one in three Kiwis now obese, many of us spend too much time eating it.
New Zealand grows better food than anyone else in the world. It's something we should be proud of.
From my experience, growing even a couple of things at home is good for the soul. If I can do it on my tiny wee balcony, anyone can. If you're not growing anything, you should.
My mate Donny reckons if I work hard, I could double my crop to 12 mandarins next year, the year after that, I'll start exporting.
