Organic vegetables like these urenika Maori potatoes and yams grown at Rolleston Prison, will soon be
growing at Christchurch Men’s and Christchurch Women’s Prisons.
Two new organic market gardens at Christchurch prisons will mean employment and horticulture training for 18 minimum security prisoners.
Twenty-seven acres of land beside Christchurch Men’s Prison and two acres inside the wire at Christchurch Women’s Prison will be used to grow organic vegetables and train prisoners in organic horticulture methods.
The new gardens will be modelled on the existing successful Rolleston Prison organic market garden and will bring the total of organic gardening sites at prisons around the country to four. National Horticulture Manager Stuart Whyte says organic gardens work well in a prison environment because they tend to be more labour intensive than conventional market gardens which are able to use chemical weedicides and pesticides.
"Organic products attract a premium in the market, which helps to off-set the costs of production and prisoner training," he says.
All prisoners who will work on the new sites will study towards the NZQA National Certificate in Horticulture (Level Two). Stuart says that all Corrections Inmate Employment horticulture instructors either have, or are working towards, Horticultural ITO Assessors qualifications. This means instructors can directly assess prisoners for their NZQA unit standards.
The 12 men who will be employed at the larger Christchurch Men’s site will be taught and supervised by Corrections Inmate Employment Instructor Marinus La Rooij.
Marinus has considerable experience of organic farming and now that he has completed his initial training as a Corrections officer, he and the prisoners will begin to prepare the land for planting.
"For example, one of the first things we’ll need to do is establish the inground infrastructure like irrigation and shelter systems" he says. Then, in conjuction with Fresh Direct Ltd, who market and distribute all Corrections' organic produce, Marinus will decide what vegetables would do best in the conditions and also be most commercially viable. And once the two new gardens are up and running?
"The organics star is rising. The industry is growing rapidly and we are growing with it. There are excellent opportunities in both local and export markets and I’d like to see more prisoners learning and working in this expanding market," says Stuart.
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ISSN 1178-8453