Farming for their future
No one expected much of the kids lumped into the 103 science class at the high school where Marty Taylor was teaching.
“Just make sure they don’t burn the school down,” he was told.
“There was a feeling that these kids were too hard to handle just because they were disengaged from classroom learning.
“But I used to be one of those boys and I knew the kids in this class weren’t stupid. “There was no expectation for them to pass and I’d just come back from a writing assignment on stoats for National Geographic and thought it could be a good applied learning opportunity.
“So I asked if I could take the class possum trapping instead.”
The outdoors and hands-on learning approach resonated with the students.
“Halfway through the year, one of the kids came up and asked to borrow $150. I asked him what for, and he said he wanted to go possum trapping.
“I lent him the money and he paid me back two weeks later. By the end of the year he’d bought a Hilux.
“The students went on to set up a business for themselves and I realised that if you can give kids an environmental activity that’s worth doing and put a small business around it, you engage them. The business is good for them and good for the community and it gets them engaged and working hard.”
Inspired by the results, Marty set up Papa Taiao Earthcare: A projectlearning enterprise that works towards a more sustainable future, where students learn about sustainability and develop a product or service that focuses on improving outcomes for people in their local community and the local environment. After meeting fellow teacher Aaron McCloy they soon realised oysters were a natural fit with the programme.
“About four years ago, I was teaching at Kaitaia College and running a Paua breeding project in the school lab when I started to talk with Marty about the opportunities for what kids can do. I spoke to a bunch of teachers and found out there was a local principal who also owned an oyster farm so I had a chat with him, and he agreed to let us use his oyster farm.”
It wasn’t long before Aaron moved to join the Papa Taio team and now leads their Science and Sustainability programme.
“Our course is called Moana Restoration – and its focus is on conservation and restoration of the marine environment,” Aaron said.
“When we looked for species that have positive environmental impacts, we’re hard pressed to find a species that does better for the environment than oysters. They require no feeding, they’re fantastic for harbour ecosystems, the benefits are innumerable.
“Our students looked at how much water they filter and the artificial reef they provide, and they decided that the opportunity both financially and for the environment was something they didn’t want to pass up.”
In 2016, Marty was facilitating teaching of the Moana Resotration course and Aaron was still teaching at Kaitaia when the first group of students, who called their enterprise Rangaunu Pure, began with 20,000 dozen spat provided by Moana New Zealand. Farming in the Parengarenga Harbour had close links to the Kaitaia community which at that time was reeling from seven recent youth suicides and three fatal car accidents.
“The students just wanted to set up a community group to support young people. One of them turned around and said, ‘let’s set up a fund for young people. We could use the 20,000 dozen oysters to raise money to address youth suicide.”
The group was recognised by the Young Enterprise Scheme for their noble goals, and their work laid the platform for the following year’s students to build on. The second enterprise, Tasty Tio, also received award recognition and managed to harvest 48,000 oysters which they sold back to Moana. The third and current group of students, have called themselves Mud Technology, and currently have 60,000 oysters in the water. They’ve also branched out to prototype an underwater drone and provide biosecurity monitoring in Northland.. For Moana New Zealand, it’s an opportunity to contribute to the wellbeing of their communities.
“We provide spat, and some space and our team help support them with coaching, training and some of the on-farm work,” said Moana’s shellfish Operations Manager, Fiona Wikaira.
“The students learn how to farm, and how to manage the business, then we buy the oysters back from them at the end of the year.
“It gives them skills and confidence, pathways and other opportunities that they may not have access to.
“We want to support youth coming through in general, but also to encourage people to work in the industry.
“Aquaculture, in particular oysters, in the Far North can contribute greatly to communities.
“It’s important for us that we work with our local communities and contribute to their wellbeing to enhance social, economic and sustainability outcomes.”
For Aaron, one of the biggest benefits of the programme is the confidence it gives his students.
“As a teacher, I’ve always found it difficult to get students to want to do the schoolwork. But with the oyster farming, it’s not difficult to motivate them. They get on with it. They want to do the work. We pick them up at 4.30 in the morning and drop them home at the end of the day and all the neighbours come out to see what they’ve been doing and you can see they’re so proud of what they’ve achieved – and rightfully so.
“Up in Kaitaia, there are limited opportunities. When you finish school, you might get a job at the Pak’n’Save – if you’re lucky. But there’s 100 kids going for the same job. It’s really hard for young people to get jobs up here and that’s one of the reasons why this is so important.
“By helping the students set up their own businesses, they’re not being locked into minimum wage jobs – they’re deciding their own worth and it provides a huge amount of self-esteem.
“They get to see really positive role models from Moana who are working on the farms and tell them if you want to do this as a job, come and see us and we’ll try to hook you up.”
It’s fitting the final word on the project goes to current student Taz Smelling who’s leading Mud Technologies.
“If everything goes right this year, we’re hoping to make around $8,000. I’m definitely going to save that to help with my schooling in the future. But we might also invest it into developing the underwater drone business,” Taz said.
“I see heaps of room for growth with the oyster farming. There’s so much opportunity if you just look around and are willing to put in the work.
“This project definitely gives kids an opportunity. It’s great for the community, it creates employment and is great for the kids.
“You hear a lot of people say there’s no opportunities in Kaitaia, but if you look around there’s opportunity everywhere.”
