Organically Grown Food

Press, Volume CVIII, Issue 31655, 16 April 1968, Page 11

Organically Grown Food

A Christchurch carpenter who is concerned that food is becoming increasingly “polluted” by chemical sprays and fertilisers has opened his own shop to sell food which is all organically grown. He Is Mr G. Robinson whose shop is in Colombo Street North. Two farmers supply him with vegetables grown only in naturally fertilised soil; his wholemeal hour comes from organically grown wheat and rye; and his honey is made by bees gathering nectar from unsprayed clover. This week he will have frozen free-range chickens, and he plans to sell meat raised on organic farms at Oarnaru and Rangiora. If there. is enough demand he will open a butcher's shop. A Yaldhurst farmer who I supplies some of Mr Robinson's vegetables fertilises the land with lupins and by turning out sheep on it before cultivating. To control insect pests, he makes his own spray out of the “milk” of seeded lettuces and sprays it on cauliflowers and cabbages. Mr Robinson claims that natural manures improve both the taste and the nutritional value of vegetables. His wholemeal flour comes from Kaikoura, where Mr I. Hislop uses old-fashioned millstones to grind his wheat into grades suitable for breakfast cereal, bread baking and cake baking. Rye flour comes from a farm at Rangiora, and is milled in the conventional way. Mr A. Hislop, a brother of the miller, provides Mr Rob- 1 inson with honey from unsprayed clover. But demand

is so great that Mr Robinson cannot get as much as he would like. After Easter Mr Robinson will sell loaves of bread made by a city baker to his own recipe, using a mixture of wholemeal, rye and soya bean flour. , . He also sells carrot juice, made on the spot, and herb tea, roasted dandelion compound, kelp and seaweed tablets, glucose, wheat germ, sunflower seeds and ground linseed, millet and pea meal. On his shelves are both malt extract and brewer's yeast, but these are not intended for home brew. The yeast is for adding to fruit juices, soups and stews. Helping Mr Robinson in

the new shop is an Australian health enthusiast, Miss P. Aggette, of Wollongong. “Three-quarters of the world is starving,” she said yesterday, “and most of the other quarter is too because it’s eating foodless foods.”