A community maara in Kaharoa is connecting people to Papatūānuku and encouraging a deeper understanding of sustainable living practices.

The beautiful lifestyle block has been home to Iran native Amir Namdari and his Swedish wife Astrid for the past three years. However, Amir struggles to claim the property as theirs. Instead, he considers themselves fortunate to have the opportunity to reside on and care for the whenua.

“We intentionally acquired this property to have a social action project; something that benefits society. It wasn’t a business to me. It was a service we wanted to provide,” says Amir.

“Food’s something that I’ve always been passionate about. I’ve always grown food – on the balcony, in the backyard, and everywhere. This place allowed us to escalate it, but we didn’t want to work in isolation because we wanted this to be a community space.”

He says the primary focus and vision statement is connecting people to Papatūānuku.

“This is my healing, my therapy. When I go to the maara, I feel connected and part of a greater whole. I don’t think you can isolate this from food sovereignty, growing food, and healthy living. All of these are part of that holistic thing, and education to me is a key here,” says Amir.

The couple has been engaging with children, organisations, and local kura at an educational level; and facilitating monthly workshops by utilising the knowledge of people in the community. Workshops cover a range of topics related to growing food, such as planting seeds and harvesting; and other connections, such as weaving kete kai (food baskets) to nurture the individual.

Kai Rotorua volunteer and friend Yumiko Kawano attended a workshop and was keen to introduce the couple to kūmara guru Te Rangikaheke Kiripatea. When she brought him along to the next workshop, Amir recognised him immediately from their visit to Te Puea Orchard when they first moved to Rotorua.

Amir says Te Rangikaheke walked up and down the maara before asking, ‘Can we lease some of this land?’. Amir responded, ‘Absolutely not.’” At Te Rangikaheke’s bewildered expression, Amir continued, “Matua, just the fact that you’re coming here and walking up and down this land is a blessing for me. I don’t want to do anything financial with you. Just use this whenua. This is your land.”

Thus, the pair’s relationship began on a foundation of trust and love, and it has continued to blossom. He has planted his first kūmara patch and is hopeful the five beds will provide over a tonne of kūmara at harvest.

“The most joyful part of the gardens for me is the kūmara patch. It somehow connects deeply with me. I always wanted to grow kūmara, but I’d never grown it before I met Matua. I’ve gained an incredible level of learning from Matua,” says Amir.

“Just the whole whakapapa of kūmara, the cultural aspects and also the technical part of it. Through kūmara I learned about maramataka. So, kūmara has significantly increased my knowledge and my understanding, not only about kūmara but about nature generally.

“Kūmara taught me about obedience. There’s stuff that you don’t know but you just need to obey. Kūmara also taught me about humility through the saying, ‘It doesn’t speak of its sweetness’. To me simply, it’s not sweet potato. It’s a lot more than that. And I don’t think I’d ever stop growing kūmara now,” says Amir.

In an exciting new development, they are in the process of producing cutting-edge above-ground kūmara storage. Traditionally, Māori stored kūmara in caves (ana kūmara) or underground pits (rua kūmara). The experiment will explore how kūmara responds in hempcrete, which is a building made of hemp.

“When you store kūmara, whether it’s underground or in a cave, it’s inside the whenua. The earth itself is an incredible insulator and also adjusts the moisture content of the cave. Those are the two main elements you need to store kūmara.

“Hemp is also a wonderful natural material that provides that balance of moisture and temperature. I have no doubt it’ll work out well, and as far as I know, no one else has used it to store kūmara,” says Amir.

Kai Rotorua has reinvented itself and has moved from Te Puea Orchard and is now based at the Kaharoa community maara. Te Rangikahehe says over the past few months the main focus has been nurturing the relationship between Kai Rotorua and the Kaharoa community maara before they enter into a lease agreement in July.

“Leasing isn’t the easiest of things to be involved in, so we’ve had to work on building a relationship, but it has been a fantastic journey. We had the lease document on one side, and we had our relationship on the other side. You soon forget about that document as you keep building that trust relationship,” says Te Rangikaheke.

He looks forward to the future possibilities and agricultural potential of the land, including the implementation of agroforestry at the back of the property. He is also excited to host a Matariki event involving the local community, particularly the children from Kaharoa School.

“The community here is so diverse but they’re mainly lifestyle blocks which is good to work with. We’ve been working with Kaharoa School for the past six years and have a good relationship with them. We’ve planted kūmara there for nearly five years, and now we’ve put in the food forest.

“We had a contractor here doing some mahi and I told him to move a kōhatu (rock) and put it up on the hill. That’s our kaitiaki. It loves it up there. It shows off every time people come here. So it loves it and we’re right next to the native bush. It’s absolutely fantastic,” says Te Rangikaheke.

Healthy Families Rotorua manager, Jenny Kaka-Scott, says the heart of creating sustainable change is building high trust and meaningful relationships across the community. She says this is a baseline approach for growing a more resilient, regenerative local kai system.

“One of the greatest lessons Covid-19 exposed was how insecure our local kai systems were in Rotorua. Our research tells us that Rotorua is heavily reliant on food being trucked into the city daily to feed the majority of our population,” says Jenny.

“By gathering whānau voices from across our communities, we’ve recorded many insights on what community-led, co-design of our local kai systems might look like. The work that Kai Rotorua does is a great example.

“What’s happening in Kaharoa marks a shift from an industrialised, corporate model to a localised, holistic system underpinned by sustainability and mātauranga Māori principles,” she says.