What the shops are short of these days

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Permalink Reply by Natalie on June 4, 2008 at 20:30

Hmm - the list goes on. We're doing CERES bulk orders through a coop and recently half the order seems to be (temporarily) out of stock. Especially nuts, flour, rice - real staples. Spoke to someone at CERES today - he said the container of rice that used to cost them $30K is now $100K - and e.g. indian rice they are completely unable to get (no end in sight). Price increases hit wholesale goods full force - a bag of rice (25kg) went up $20 between release of the pricelist and dispatch of goods the following week. Makes you wonder... I am sure these increases are going to hit the supermarkets shortly as well, probably part of it still being absorbed in the margins. Also, for smaller unit sizes I suppose it is slightly less noticable.
Better eat as much German chocolate as I can while it's still around... Thank god for Whittakers though;-)

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Permalink Reply by Janet Browne on June 23, 2008 at 9:22

Deirdre, I have noticed many products disappearing, or coming from other sources that are suspect. You mentioned candles .Our wonderful NZ white supermarket candles have been replaced by a really inferior product which is obviously not made here anymore. Soybeans have gone completely, organic or otherwise, and if you want to sprout anything the choices are limited as Bio Security laws now prohibit imports of untreated seed. I have begun searches for soybeans and are trying to grow on anything I can find. Beans are an important source of protein which can be stored when animal protein is not available. Yes,I do know about the "research" on phytoestrogens in soybeans, and I'm not even going there! Just look at what beans are available in NZ for growing in our own gardens and drying. Koanga has done a bit with seed in this category. We also need to look at what other food products are now imported which used to be grown locally. We used to have barley, oats and maize in Northland, but only maize silage and sweet corn are grown now. Much of NZ's wheat supply is imported. And Watties Heinz now use imported(Chinese?) ingredients in their cans. Not getting products is bad enough but not being able to trust these products is scary. Indian products such as chapatti flour and basmati rice are running out as India and now Indonesia withhold exports to feed their own people. We need to focus on what we can grow in our own backyard. The recommended staple is potatoes which grow in every zone and have less growing problems than many grains. We should ALL be planting potatoes now if your soil's not soaked like ours, and it's a good crop to break in the soil if you are beginnning a garden for the first time. No dig method is a great way to get started if the garden's boggy. Regards Janet

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Permalink Reply by Deirdre Kent on June 23, 2008 at 9:37

I was talking to a crowd from Wellington in the weekend who haven't noticed much in the way of shortages. Maybe the supermarkets there get the first lot of barley and lentils. And we are also very dependent on Australia for a lot of grain, but climate change has affected crops. My potatoes seem to grow all year but I expect sometime we will get a frost. The bigger the variety we can eat the better really for a balanced diet. Amarynth? Quinoa? Experiments needed everywhere..

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Permalink Reply by Johanna Knox on August 14, 2008 at 22:44

Yes - thank goodness for potatoes! :o)

I recently heard of a fellow homeschooling mum who is experimenting with growing rice on the West Coast of the South Island. I'm hoping to get updates! :)

I was wondering about trying out buckwheat here in Wellington. (I've been told it's not quite so labour intensive to hull and grind as people sometimes say, if you sprout it first??) Would be very keen for any ideas or feedback on that ...

Johanna

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Permalink Reply by Laura too on August 15, 2008 at 9:24

In reply to Natalies post:
I have used Ceres since it was started and found that they are often out of stock. This seems not to be a very recent occurance at all. Our co-op now buys most grains, pulses etc. from Chantals, the freight costs are sometimes lower than what Ceres used to charge, although I am not happy that it is the double distance away from us, so more food miles. I make up for that by walking the vegies, milk, cheese and meat into the kitchen from the paddock.

For those of you that want to go into growing their own grains:
- The easiest grains to grow AND harvest is corn/maize. Not very useful for "real" bread, but the right varieties can be ground into a flour to mix with wheat for baking flatbreads and cakes, or can be soaked and ground for tortillas (this is a quite involved process though - you do not just grind the dried corn), or it can be soaked and cooked and used like rice etc.
- The next easiest to grow is wheat and rye (the traditional bread baking grains). A bit labour intensive to harvest with a scythe or sickle, not very easy for us up here to get dry enough to thresh and store - if not dry enough the grains go moldy. The main problems with wheat and rye on a small scale are the birds! They can harvest 100% of your crop if not deterred.
- Also easy to grow is oats and barley, harvesting, threshing and drying as above. However they will not fall free of the husks and need dehusking. That means you need to put your grinding stones at a calculated distance so the husks will be broken off. With homegrown, ungraded grains, quite a challenge, as the smaller ones will slip through and be not dehusked (the same goes for rice). I gave up on these.
- Rice can be grown as dry (upland) rice just like barley and has the same de-husking problems, so may also not be the grain of choice for the beginner and on a small scale.
- Buckwheat is not a grass like the above grains and grows very easily, sprawling on the ground. While excellent in a chicken foraging area, it is not so easy to harvest by hand for human consumption. It also needs de-husking and to aid that it can be sprouted, dehusked and then cooked like rice.
- The most easy to grow of all is Quinoa and Amaranth (also not grasses), they are basically weeds, and I still get the odd one pop up in my gardens 10 years after the experiments... Harvesting is a little nightmare, as the whole heads need to be harvested and dried for the tiny seeds to fall out. Luckily the birds do such a good job on harvesting every little grain first so that you may decide not to bother with the left-overs. In addition the Quinoa often starts sprouting on the plant if you get some nice warm humid autumn days. You will get a very small amount of Edibles from a huge area and of all grains I feel these will never be the mainstay for a self-sufficent grower.

I will write a bit more about this grain growing in the food section in the next few days.
Meanwhile I would recommend to grow corn and pumpkins if you'd like a lot of food-calories from a small area.

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Permalink Reply by Eli Soothill on January 13, 2009 at 20:49

Hi Laura, and Natalie as well,

I know this thread is a few months old, but I think it's still very relevant. I also buy direct from Ceres as I found we needed more control of our food supply than the shops could give us. Then I found out how hard it actually was to deal with Ceres and I have more respect for the shops! Anyway....we have been on a very limited diet recently for my children's sake, and quinoa is one of our staples. I was just starting to research whether we'd be able to grow it ourselves so thanks Laura for the info. It is also one of the things that Ceres have found difficult to keep in stock recently and has leapt in price over the last few months. 'Officially' from a health perspective we will always need to be gluten free, so although a beginner gardener I'd be looking at the last grains/seeds on your list Laura. We've also been avoiding potatoes (because they're nightshade veggies) and eating kumara instead, but I'm preparing myself for the day when we have to eat what we've been able to grow, rather than necessarily what a nutritionist says is right for us. The ultimate goal would be to have the two coincide, which will take some planning!

Laura, if you still feel like writing more about grain growing I'd be very interested.

Eli

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