Enjoy, Ben 

A nice 3 minute overview of the swale-based water system and flood-proofing a landscape

A short clip on constructing the latest round of rice paddies

As is always the case when traveling, my expectations, though I tried to have little, were blasted apart quickly.  New Zealand - a land of such abundance is not the garden of eden.  Of course, but what is it?  A land rich in biomes - probably densest in land types of anywhere in the world: subtropical beaches to alpine zone in 50 miles, yet also a place of scarcity - especially on the water front.  It's a land of rich climate possibilities, where one can grow apricot, apple, olive, pear, pomegranite, mulberry, avocado, cherry, lemon, paw paw, lime, peach, loquat, persimmon, guava, walnut, hazelnut, pecan, pitachio, monkey puzzle, plum, fijoa, blueberry, goose, currant, many others, kiwi, sepote, grape, grapefruit, oak, chestnut, almond all on the same site.  It's a place badly oversheeped with 50 million grazing very steep slopes that show sign of soil loss, erosion and even slumping and minor land slides in all corners of the country.  It's a place in drought that has the makings of desert.  A place that could be more resilient than most of the world but one that is moving into a more brittle situation, largely due to its relationship with fresh water. 

It's a place with great work being done by energized warm people - Sustainable Wanganui, Mark Christensen and the Central Tree Crops Research Trust, the Kohanga Foundation, Terraquaculture, Tui Community, the Quaker Society's headquarters in the southern hemisphere and many more.  I've had the opportunity to visit with these people and their project sites, as well as others.  Seen first hand some of the perennial and regenerative land and community work happening here.  And like in the States - the most innovated and important deep solutions are springing up from below - indivuals and communities  - small groups working hard and showing what's possible in terms of healthy people and land.  It's not coming from the government that bends over backwards to promote the production of dairy for China - for which they turn millions of tons of water into milk, into powder, for export, each year.  Irrigating pasture, shipping their water off and sending their last remaining soil into the sea.  It's not from the top down, just like in the U.S.  No one 'saving' this place from the goverment end, no best practices to protect the people and their land, just small groups envisioning a better way and making it happen on the ground. 

The 2nd year of our rice research testing is coming to a spectacular close with full terraced hillside paddies of short grain brown rice. Sound like Java or the Phillipines or Japan?  Indeed, but this sloped-land technique for perpetual grain production on marginal land has proven possible for centuries in other cold climates.  Our site is testing this crop in what's likely the coldest place on Earth anyone is attempting rice.  But the climate is shifting and we haven't tried all possibilities besides.  So far the results are stunning:  4,000-5,000 lbs/acre on subsoil of grain that can be stored for years and used by anyone on the farm/homestead be it human or farm animal.