Communities of Regenerative Learning Mentoring Network Programme developed through conversations and a pilot programme over some years as a next step to support community connected Alumni farms who participated in For The Love of Bees Earthworkers Programme Regenerative Horticulture 101.
Earthworkers is a five day course with access to an ongoing WhatsApp mentoring group and attracts a diverse range of people with the desire to help mitigate climate change through learning how to heal the soil using biology first principles and practices in growing food.
This next step was to connect and mentor six farms over each season of the year in a regional network to help increase the farms’ regenerative potential, build peer to peer support and community awareness. We saw coming together in this way as strengthening momentum for food system change, climate change readiness and connected communities, and from November 2023 to November 2024 we were able to run this learning network programme for the first time.
The six participating farms across Tāmaki Makaurau were Growing Point at Dignan Street Community Garden in Point Chevalier, Ngāti Whātua Ōrakei’s māra kai Pourewa, TUMG (Tāmaki Urban Market Garden) in Glen Innes, Ihumaatao in Māngere, Kelmarna Community Farm in Herne Bay, OMG (For The Love Of Bees Organic Market Garden) in Eden Terrace.
Thirty farmers and farm team members participated across the year mentored by Earthworker facilitators Daniel Schuurman and Sarah Smuts-Kennedy, Earthworker Alumni Jenny Lux as Farm Mentor, Rebecca Swan as Data Mentor, Kathryn Tulloch as Project Lead and Shona Roberts as GM.
Coming together with a shared goal of growing local, abundant and nutritious food using methods that mitigate climate change, our focus was on supporting each farm to increase the restorative and regenerative potential of their soil for higher biomass productivity, pest, drought and flood resilience. As well as providing professional development opportunities in soil science and farming innovations to support their success for ongoing and meaningful employment in this emerging sector. The focus on a network to gather a community of farm teams was also so they can further support their local communities with kai and knowledge about how to grow it.
We began with an online introduction to the programme and each other a few days before meeting in person for a two day tour of the farms. Each participating farm had one or all of their team who had previously been in one of our Earthworkers courses over the last five years. The farms were all at different stages of their regenerative horticulture journey from being well established farms to just a year or so in.
A three part data collection process which structured the year was introduced. Part one was soil and leaf tests, results and soil therapy recommendations processed by Daniel Schuurman, part two, a soil health workshop run by Data Mentor Rebecca Swan involving interactive visual assessments like worm counts, water infiltrations tests, presence of glomalin clusters on plant roots as well as microscopy results both took place at the beginning and end of the programme. Part three was a data collection process for the farm teams to track their inputs and outputs in suggested templates mentored by Jenny Lux, so end of programme results could be understood in this context.
It was a real highlight to meet as a group and tour around each of the farms which oriented us to the whenua the farm teams cared for in the network and collective energy for the learning journey ahead of us.
Onsite mentoring by Farm Mentor Jenny Lux continued in March and September providing support with implementing recommendations and for the upcoming winter and summer growing seasons. We checked in as a network over zoom eight times across the year with Jenny, Sarah and Kathryn to share and discuss what was happening on the farm, support successes and failures and orientate to where we were at in the programme. Photo documentation was taken by the programme mentors as well as a neighbourhood view and farm drone photo by photographer Petra Leary.
The programme ended with a celebration workshop with participating farms presenting their reflections and learnings with group feedback and a shared lunch.
The learning and results varied across the sites a great deal. Higher biomass productivity was achieved in different ways from recommendations on how to regenerate unproductive beds, confidence gained in dense planting with successful results, new methods of seed sowing increased seedling production and in turn increased Community Supporting Agriculture boxes to an impressive amount for the site’s size, to farmers new to the site coming to terms with different soil types and ways to work with it over time.
Drought resilience was explored through various techniques of mulching with great success in keeping soils moist and plants healthy over summer with limited water access, however unexpected and insightful results came through via soil testing at the end of the programme. These results highlighted that all inputs have an effect on the soil system and that unexpected effects can be understood and refined by the tracking of methodologies and materials.
Some of the highlights and key learnings mentioned from the farm teams were, more understanding of soil health, farmer development, adaption of techniques from larger scale farm experience, gaining confidence in trials and errors, more connected to data collection and now see the value of it, planning ahead, increased knowledge for navigating lean times, increasing seed raising capacity, making biocomplete compost, successful trials to regenerate unproductive beds, being super careful with inputs, being part of a community learning together across the seasons, visualising microbes, microscopy deepening the relationship to place and the living systems we are part of.
Data collection and soil health workshops nurtured a relationship to the chemical and biological functioning in each farm’s soil and how it relates to soil and plant health to make informed decisions around inputs and methodologies. Soil health zooms discussed how deficiencies or excesses disrupt biological processes relating to plant health and encouraged using inputs and actions based on this, which often is asking the farms to use less, or focus on one or two inputs that will help the overall cycling of nutrients and plant health.
Learning through repetition with farm teams seeing and talking about similar practices on different sites across the year helped gain familiarity with core biology-first principles and practices.
All the farms spoke of funding and financial challenges and of balancing learning the complexities of regenerative horticulture and horticulture in general with education and outreach to interested groups and communities. As well as the challenges of staff turn over and induction. Participants were thankful for the opportunity to begin to form a regional network and for the mentoring and resources provided. Everyone held a passion for being able to feed their community and work towards nuturing spaces that are alive, abundant, healing and future focused, which this programme aimed to support.
Many thanks to our programme supporters: Foundation North, Auckland Climate Fund, Awhero Nui Trust, The Jenkins Foundation, Kete Ora Trust.