Table of Contents
Brighid
In October 1915 the NZ Parliament passed the Discharged Soldier Settlement Act which gave returned servicemen the opportunity to own some land and apply for cheap finance so they could develop it into productive farms. The government emphasised that success in the Soldier-Settlement scheme would ultimately depend on the hard work and initiative of the men themselves in converting initial benefits into long term success.
More than 12,000 people applied for land but by the mid 1920s over 1,000 soldiers had abandoned their farms – and it was not due to a lack of hard work.
There are a number of reasons for the failures but one of them was that in many areas, the poor soil led to poor pasture which led to metabolic problems in the animals such as cows not getting into calf or not holding the pregnancy, low milk production and generally poor animal health with the stock unable to resist disease and the stress of drought or cold weather.
Nowadays, these areas are productive due to understanding the need for appropriate mineral supplements, which are mostly added to the fertiliser, as it is now known that many areas of New Zealand are deficient in selenium, cobalt, copper and magnesium and other minerals and micronutrients.
When I married into a dairy farming family 45 years ago I quickly learned that successful farming is heavily reliant on understanding the soil and using supplementation. The smallest amount can sometimes make a huge difference and many treatments for ailing cows were not pharmaceutical products but minerals: e.g. a solution of magnesium for grass staggers, injection of calcium for milk fever and zinc in the water troughs for facial eczema. Antibiotics were the only pharmaceutical product used when needed for infections. Soil tests were taken annually to see what supplements needed to be added to the fertiliser and application was with smaller amounts applied several times during the year so the land could efficiently utilise the nutrients.
When we left farming for the kiwifruit industry, the same principles applied.
We test the soil every year for nutrient levels and then test the kiwifruit leaf to see if the nutrients are being picked up by the plant. These tests guide us as to how we manage the orchard and the crop. Experience has shown us that even the ‘experts’ are not always correct, so we rely on our gut intuition and years of experience working on the land. For example, we are regularly told that we use too much lime but experience shows that an application of extra lime, which is cheap and safe, produces sweeter fruit that stores better if we can’t get the fruit to market quickly.
These years of experience have also guided the way our family look after their health, preferring to use natural health, a healthy diet and living drug free as much as possible. At the first sign of a sniffle or sore throat, appropriate supplements and a few early nights to bed means that sickness, especially viruses, are usually banished. The supplements we use are often a mix of minerals, vitamins and a herbal tonic. My husband and I have never had a normal ’flu vaccination and we have never had the ’flu, so it is obviously working for us.
Very early on in the Covid pandemic, a number of studies from a number of different countries found that Vitamin D3 levels determined the severity of sickness a person would experience. This made sense to me as we have been told to “slip, slop and slap” for 30 plus years now instead of talking about ‘safe’ sun exposure and it is recognised that worldwide, most of the population have low vitamin D3 levels.
Because I choose to take responsibility for my own health, choose not to use medication unless essential for a short term issue (I am not on any prescribed medication and very rarely visit my GP) and choose to eat a healthy diet, I didn’t want to have the Covid vaccine, which to my understanding hasn’t been around long enough to verify how safe or effective it is. Yes, I know the technology has been around for about 30 years but there is a very good reason why it hasn’t been rolled out before now because of safety concerns.
There are probably hundreds of other New Zealand citizens who, like me, use natural health practices but are now being punished for having done their own research and choosing a better, safer way to keep well.
If the Labour Government’s response to Covid was really about health, why aren’t we being blasted with messages about the benefits of a healthy diet? Why aren’t we being told about the added stress to the body for those who smoke and simple, relatively cheap ways to boost our immune systems so we can fight the virus – something that helps the immune compromised as well?
The government is spending millions of dollars on advertising campaigns to get vaccinated and get boosted, but not one word on how to help yourself.
So, like many others, I now believe that the Labour Government’s response is more about control and fulfilling the conditions of its contract with Pfizer – all the while snubbing their noses at the population, many of whom voted them into power to serve New Zealanders, not destroy our way of life.
