\u201cA policy of ours, or a value, is that once you start using fossil fuels, you actually use up more calories than you produce. So eventually that\u2019s not going to sustain the world.\u201d<\/p>\n
They had motor vehicles \u201cto stay integrated\u201d but did not need fuel to farm, they explained.<\/p>\n
The family\u2019s Catholic faith and respect for M\u0101ori knowledge and values also infused their way of farming and living, Joseph said.<\/p>\n
As members of the Catholic Worker Movement \u2013 founded in the 1930s out of the Great Depression \u2013 helping the poor and marginalised, farming communally, and pacifism, were principles they worked by.<\/p>\n
Heavy farming work was done by a team of four bullocks, and Archie and Buster, two Clydesdale horses.<\/p>\n
The rest of the work to feed four households \u2013 from about six hectares \u2013 was done by hand.<\/p>\n
In a paddock over the river, a crop of maize stands tall, almost ready for harvest.<\/p>\n
One of Joseph\u2019s sons, Abraham, hitches up his team of bullocks to lightly till the soil of a bare strip nearby for planting lupins \u2013 good for nourishing the soil after the potato harvest.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen I first got into bullocks, I thought two would be enough, and when they were about 4 years old, they weren\u2019t really pulling as much as I wanted, so I got a couple more, but they kept on growing for another two years. There were six before they stopped. And so now I\u2019ve got much more power than I need.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Lands grow olives and a variety of fruit and vegetables, graze a few sheep and cows, make their own butter and rely mostly on their staple maize crop which they kibble and grind for bread and porridge.<\/p>\n
A few things are bought in like wheat flour, sugar, tea and coffee, with money earned from part-time work off the farm.<\/p>\n
Daughter-in-law Marissa, for example, works as a nurse, to pay for extras for her household.<\/p>\n
\u201cTwo days a week gives us more than enough money, bit too much money \u2013 to live off.\u201d<\/p>\n
She enjoyed being part of the community and said the family was anxious not to be seen as survivalist or \u201cexclusionary\u201d.<\/p>\n
Catherine and Joseph Land in their home. Photo \/ RNZ, Sally Round<\/p>\n
With homeschooling her three children, cooking, gardening and helping build their new cob house, with husband Patrick, it was busy 24\/7, she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s very physical. Yeah, it is. And there\u2019s never a moment in which your job is done. There\u2019s always something you think, \u2018oh, I could, should, probably be doing\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n
The Land family\u2019s roots here were laid by Peter and Judith Land, who bought a block of bush in the 1970s.<\/p>\n
Joseph\u2019s parents had been teachers in Fiji and were inspired by their life in a Vanua Levu village to recreate a similar subsistence style of living, alongside their Catholic faith.<\/p>\n
\u201cDad was a visionary, not practical,\u201d Joseph said, pointing out a photo of his late father, who lived here into his 90s.<\/p>\n
He did, however, set up a power source from a nearby waterfall. Now the Lands have solar power for lighting and biogas and wood-fired ranges for cooking.<\/p>\n
Marissa shows me how she grinds the maize by hand using a Corona mill after it is kibbled \u2013 the kernels removed from the cob \u2013 at another hand-powered machine in the farmyard.<\/p>\n
The corncobs are stored in elevated storehouses nearby, like small hutches on stilts.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey were everywhere in Hokianga, every farm had big gardens, small herds of cows, like 10 cows, big gardens, pig sties and lots of corn for animals and people,\u201d Joseph said.<\/p>\n
He arrived here as a boy and remembered when the roads were much quieter.<\/p>\n
The local kaum\u0101tua taught him gardening skills, including the knowledge needed for growing k\u016bmara. He nurtures several heritage varieties on his k\u016bmara t\u0101papa.<\/p>\n
Joseph has a k\u016bmara tapapa and sprouts many heritage varieties. Photo \/ RNZ, Sally Round<\/p>\n
\u201cYou get really attached to the different varieties.<\/p>\n
\u201cI learned all this from the last gardens in Whirinaki in the 70s. They vanished within five years, but I just got a glimpse of the lifestyle. So, a lot of this is just copying what was everyone\u2019s experience here up until the 70s.\u201d<\/p>\n
Joseph and his wife Catherine have seven grown children, four of whom have remained on the farm.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was very hard to get rid of me out of the valley,\u201d Patrick said. \u201cI did travel a little bit, but I just always wanted to be back here. Yeah, I find it very hard to be somewhere where you\u2019re just eating food that you don\u2019t know where it\u2019s come from.\u201d<\/p>\n
The bullocks are named Gordon, Cob, Fergus and Fingle. Photo \/ RNZ, Sally Round
Patrick Land – in the foreground – is constructing a cob home with the help of his brother-in-law Andy. Photo \/ RNZ, Sally Round<\/p>\n
Joseph is regarded as a kaikarakia among the local people, leading blessings and prayers and spending a lot of time at the local marae.<\/p>\n
He told me the Land family acknowledged the mana whenua of the local hap\u016b, and that the Lands stayed here by their goodwill. <\/p>\n
\u201cI think the big thing is having a mindset, this is our base economy, our life here, and so it\u2019s real. What we grow we really depend on.\u201d <\/p>\n
Life was \u201cfull and rich\u201d, however, he acknowledged \u201ccome a disaster, we can go and get money and buy food\u201d. <\/p>\n
\u201cSo, in that way, we\u2019re not as real as a peasant farmer in other parts of the world who don\u2019t have those other options. But we don\u2019t avail ourselves of that option. We don\u2019t need to. We continue here. The average wage to us is enormous.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cA policy of ours, or a value, is that once you start using fossil fuels, you actually use…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":361711,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[147538,3595,2841,2109,12705,25078,43007,42,424,43,1067,78775,18833,8909,40,38,41,39,1339],"class_list":{"0":"post-361710","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-bullocks","9":"tag-by","10":"tag-country","11":"tag-family","12":"tag-farms","13":"tag-fossil","14":"tag-fuels","15":"tag-headlines","16":"tag-life","17":"tag-news","18":"tag-northland","19":"tag-powered","20":"tag-round","21":"tag-sally","22":"tag-top-news","23":"tag-top-stories","24":"tag-topnews","25":"tag-topstories","26":"tag-without"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361710","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=361710"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/361710\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/361711"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=361710"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=361710"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=361710"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}