About OE

Welcome to the wonderful world of:

Artisan Retreats, Conservation Tourism and Organic Food and Wine in Aotearoa, New Zealand

You won’t see any corporate vegetable farms growing acres in monoculture, or feedlots supplying herds of miserable animals. All the chickens are free range and so too, the eggs. There is no genetically modified organic food in New Zealand, and there are no underpaid workers.

On the contrary, our organic farms are small, diverse havens producing highly nutritious, safe food, sustainably produced and often marketed and consumed locally. So seek them out!

This site lists some of the organic shops in New Zealand towns and cities, but additionally there is a wealth of growers who sell at the farm gate and or the Local Farmers’ Market. Some of them are listed here, and others you will find on the roadside. They grow seasonally, and mostly the vegetables are therefore grown outdoors. Look for the logos of organic certification for authenticity. They are your proof that organic standards are being adhered to.

Increasingly growers are reverting to using our heritage varieties of fruits and vegetables, available through seed banks and seed saving operations around the country as well as nurseries specialising in old varieties of trees. These varieties came with the first Maori, and then all the European settlers, and have adapted to our unique climate and soil conditions over the last couple of centuries. They are open pollinated, disease resistant, flavoursome fruits and vegetables, with proven superior nutritional value. There is now a huge push throughout the organic community to keep our heritage varieties alive.

---

See also about Organic Certification Symbols and what they mean.

---

View the MUST SEE documentary "The Future of Food" right here.
A must-see documentary about the policies of Monsanto Inc., its worldwide programme of patenting all seed stock genetic codes, producing terminator seeds and controlling the world food supply.

---

Get Primitive Go Organic: These are the Reasons Why
Article by Raw Foods Guru Leslie Kenton