Crooked Vege co-founder Jonathan Mines. Photo / RNZ, Sally Round
Crooked Vege co-founder Jonathan Mines. Photo / RNZ, Sally Round
By Sally Round of RNZ
It’s a little over two years since Crooked Vege started up near Ōtaki with a plan to allow people to just “pay what you can” for a weekly vege box.
What started with a somewhat noble, if not radical idea (for New Zealand at least)seems to be working, notwithstanding some challenges.
Back in 2023, co-founder Jonathan Mines was living in a portacabin looking out over a few newly dug rows, with an experimental cover crop in a small polytunnel.
When RNZ’s Country Life visited again this week, things had revved up more than a notch.
The registered charity has gone from 200 to 300sq m in production to about 1500m2.
There’s a large greenhouse heaving with winter crops, an automated irrigation system and a nursery “you can stand up in”, helped by $34,000 in donations after a crowdfunding exercise.
“Still very DIY, but far more functional,” Mines said.
Around 60% of people pay the asking price, while 10 to 20% pay more than that and 15 to 25% under.
The farmers are paid a fair wage but also rely on the support of volunteers.
Winter crops flourishing in the greenhouse and Crooked Vege. Photo / RNZ, Sally Round
“We don’t really track individually what people are doing, but I know sometimes there are people who can’t afford to pay anything in a certain week, and that’s totally fine,” Mines said.
“That’s really the sort of people that we want to be growing food for, like people who really care about where their kai comes from, but are just in a tough place.”
Mines said they also grow some niche crops for restaurants, and supply retailers and an honesty box outlet in the neighbourhood, with zero waste.
They have been burgled twice in six months and are fund-raising to replace $5000 worth of power tools and specialist equipment, and to upgrade their security system at the cost of about $9000, an amount they’d rather put into the community, Mines said wryly.
So, has he ever felt like giving up over the past two years?
“Yeah, heaps.
“I don’t know, I guess there’s a lot of stubbornness there, or pig-headedness or stupidity.”
Living conditions are a bit easier for Mines two years on from living in a leaky trailer, followed by a chilly off-grid cabin.
“I’m not at all thinking about leaving this project, other than, you know, those really dark moments, like when you turn up to work and your door has been smashed down with a pickaxe.”
He said the goal is to get the farm to a spot where it pays everyone a reasonable wage.
“We know we’ve done heaps of hard mahi in setting this place up, and if we were ever to leave it, we would want it to be making it easier for someone else to be stepping into this kind of work.”
