Toha Kai Farm
Toha Kai is working to deepen our capacity to build a resilient non-profit food system...and growing kai is a huge part of the vision we are working towards.
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Why is Toha Kai Farm so important?
Toha Kai Farm is looking to do things a little differently...probably not surprising 🙂
We love to experiment. We love to collaborate. We love to understand why things work and how we can do more of the really good things.
We see that the current organics growing system is a good place to start and to work to see how we could possibly do more good, not only for the people eating our kai but also for the broader ecology that we are an active partner within.
What does this look like?
We will running research alongside the growing operations on the farm to understand how we can assess and improve the energy relationships within our system.
All living systems rely on energy as their foundation. Energy transforms as it moves between different forms of life with any ecology.
We are tasking ourselves to track all the energy we expend in the process of growing kai, as well as recognising and measuring the energy that we are collaboratively creating within the ecology of the farm. The end goal being that we can work out how to create an energy positive system - ie more energy created than used.
As a first step, we will be working alongside students, from the Natural Resources Engineering department at University of Canterbury, to figure out how to map and measure the energy relationships.
We hope that we can develop and deepen this research over time, with a view to open-sourcing a template for small scale energy positive growing system.
Next Steps??
We have a piece of land that we are wanting to progress with. It is situated near Tai Tapu in Waitaha, Aotearoa.
The size of the plot is between 5000-6000m2 and has been used previously by market gardeners using organic and biodynamic practices.
We have been applying for some funding to get going, but what we are trying to achieve seems a bit beyond the intentions of the funding available at the present time.
So...we are intending to launch a crowdfunding campaign in early 2023.
The financial resources gained will be invested into paying people to farm the land, the infrastructure needed to grow healthy kai and support our energy positive growing system research.
This will be an opportunity for people to invest into the vision for a more healing and nourishing practice of growing food.
Stay tuned to hear more about this journey we are undertaking...
If you are keen to support this vision, please get in touch with us via email - tohakaifarm@gmail.com