Waitaki’s own ‘dirt doctor’ has released his first book.
Jim O’Gorman’s book Good Earth Great Food was a decade in the making — and based on more than 30 years of experience.
The organic vegetable grower and soil ecologist has been producing tomatoes and potatoes fit for a king for close to 30 years on his 0.57ha market garden at the coastal settlement of Kakanui.
His vegetables have been chosen numerous times for visiting royals, including King Charles — then Prince Charles — and Camilla the Duchess of Cornwall when they visited New Zealand in 2012 and 2014.
Mr O’Gorman’s practical guide to growing healthy, nutrient-dense food through biologically healthy soils was based on his decades of experience in soil testing and data collection.
“Healthy soil is just as alive as you and I are — it’s oxygen breathing, absolutely teeming with microbes.
“When you start killing those microbes you start killing the whole character of the soil.
“The reason I wrote this book is to demonstrate to the peasant farmer that when all else fails they can turn to biology and rescue their soils,” he said.
The book offers advice on how to make compost, including burying fish frames in it, and about making compost tea, mulch and what ideal hand tools to use on the soil.
Mr O’Gorman’s ideas on regenerative horticulture and agriculture have been presented on the world stage in conference papers, and TV documentaries such as Kathleen Gallagher’s Earth Whisperers Papatūānuku (2009), while Rachel Patching’s documentary The Dirt Doctor screened on BBC Knowledge in 2014, in addition to Mr O’Gorman’s Dirt Doctor NZ YouTube series.
Chef Bevan Smith, the founder and owner of award-winning restaurant Riverstone Kitchen near Waitaki Bridge, is one of several chefs who regularly buys produce from Mr O’Gorman’s tiny 0.57ha market garden at Kakanui.
Mr Smith said the horticulturist had dedicated the latter part of his life to the science of healthy soils and how to produce nutrient-dense organic food from them.
“His approach builds soil fertility with minimal intervention but results in food with real flavour and as such his produce is eagerly sought out by chefs and home cooks alike.
“Jim’s knowledge is essential to anyone who appreciates organic farming techniques and his insights will be invaluable to anyone with an interest in improving their own food-growing systems naturally,” Mr Smith said.
Mr O’Gorman, 76, has presented his work throughout the country and has been growing tomatoes and potatoes successively in the same soil for 27 years.
The quality of the soil is as good if not better every year, he said.
“I have intentionally developed methods using only low-tech hand tools to benefit small-scale farmers in less-developed countries, but they are equally applicable to home gardeners and people working small holdings.
“That said, there is much here to interest the conventional farmer.”
Whereas conventional soil scientists and farmers used chemistry, as part of a system that had been taught at New Zealand institutes for many generations, to maintain a balance in biological systems, Mr O’Gorman said he did the opposite.
“Rather than trying to change the biology by fiddling with the chemistry, there’s far more value in focusing on improvements of the biology of the soil and getting that right, and then you’ll find that your chemistry will come into line naturally,” he said.
Mr O’Gorman said that approaching soil from a “biological perspective” was the only thing that would bring it back into balance.
He said he raised caution in his book about “putting too much” on the land, and that nitrate was poisoning it and the water.
“It was a matter of the farmers being encouraged to over nitrify their soils in order to increase the productivity, but it hasn’t … and now we’re finding the farmers are struggling.
“It’s about optimum production, not maximum, because every soil, every farm has an optimal capacity.”
We have only had chemicals in our farming system in New Zealand for less than 100 years and already “our lands are depleting”, Mr O’Gorman said.
“We’re really not acknowledging how desperately bad our environmental degradation is, and now we’re listening to the EU starting to say you’re not meeting the pledges you made under the Paris Agreement.”
The Paris Agreement — a legally binding international treaty on climate change that was adopted in 2015 — has sparked political debate in New Zealand over agricultural emissions and rural land use.
He says while the New Zealand government was denying the degradation, “the evidence is quite the opposite”.
“We’re noticing the beginning of the downfall of a lot of farms now — Southland, Canterbury and Waikato are notable examples of the way things are degrading, and once they reach a tipping point, they’re in real trouble.”
However, Mr O’Gorman said his self-published book was optimistic and interested in long-term sustainability.
“There is room to say we can repair the damage and farm successfully, and we don’t have to change much in order to achieve it.
“It’s not to say farmers aren’t conservationists either,” he said. “Most of them are very aware of what’s going on, on their farm, and are trying their hardest to be environmentally sensitive and aware.”
Good Earth Great Food is available from Paper Plus Oamaru and Amazon online.