New Zealand’s food system – from production to delivery – has been built around efficiency rather than resilience to climate change and natural disasters. But there are solutions.
We should also be looking at what food we grow. I’ve always found it crazy that we import bananas from countries where rainforests are cut down for banana and palm oil plantations. There they blend unwanted bananas and foliage into livestock feeds, while we import Palm Kernel Extract as a cattle feed supplement.
By growing our own bananas, we not only get a staple food crop for less CO2 emissions, but we also provide farmers with an alternative source of cattle feed, reducing the demand for imports of products like Palm Kernel Extract that contribute to deforestation in other countries.
I thought Australia only allowed sale of Australian grown bananas or something like that making bananas super expensive?
Home gardeners grow certain varieties of bananas in NZ, but I think we shouldn’t underestimate how many bananas we eat in NZ. I’d be pretty confident that it’s more than we have any hope of growing (but maybe we can supplement the supply?).
Sure. Northern areas can grow many different varieties. I grow about 8 different types in the far north and they do very well as long as they are not smothered by kikuyu. https://www.tropicalfruitgrowers.nz/ has more info.
A few weeks ago while travelling on the intercity bus I saw a banana plantation just south of Whangarei.
We should also be looking at what food we grow. I’ve always found it crazy that we import bananas from countries where rainforests are cut down for banana and palm oil plantations. There they blend unwanted bananas and foliage into livestock feeds, while we import Palm Kernel Extract as a cattle feed supplement.
By growing our own bananas, we not only get a staple food crop for less CO2 emissions, but we also provide farmers with an alternative source of cattle feed, reducing the demand for imports of products like Palm Kernel Extract that contribute to deforestation in other countries.
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I thought Australia only allowed sale of Australian grown bananas or something like that making bananas super expensive?
Home gardeners grow certain varieties of bananas in NZ, but I think we shouldn’t underestimate how many bananas we eat in NZ. I’d be pretty confident that it’s more than we have any hope of growing (but maybe we can supplement the supply?).
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Sure. Northern areas can grow many different varieties. I grow about 8 different types in the far north and they do very well as long as they are not smothered by kikuyu. https://www.tropicalfruitgrowers.nz/ has more info.
A few weeks ago while travelling on the intercity bus I saw a banana plantation just south of Whangarei.
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We can’t possibly grow everything in the supermarket shelves. We certainly can’t grow some basic ingredients like sugar.
I never said that. We should grow what we can when it makes sense, eg bananas and pineapple outdoors, papaya and mango under cover etc.
I don’t know how much sense it makes to grow things like papayas, mangoes, and bananas.