Our History in Digital E-books
True sons to the soil and extraordinary success through adversity. Purchase the E-Books through Kobo today.
Chinese have been market gardening in New Zealand from 1867 when they arrived as goldminers in Otago. Earning a living by tilling the soil was not a new enterprise for these men. Nearly all were from rural villages dotted around the fertile and densely populated Pearl River Delta where they and their forefathers had engaged in farming for hundreds of years.
In New Zealand, market gardening became one of the key Chinese occupations; more than 40 per cent of Chinese were directly engaged in gardening, and most Chinese New Zealanders had a family or business connection to the industry. During the Second World War, Chinese growers were an integral part of the market gardening industry in New Zealand, growing 75 per cent of the country’s green vegetables. Sons of the Soil spans more than 140 years of Chinese involvement in the vegetable growing industry and travels through each major region where there were communities of Chinese market gardeners. These communities, situated throughout New Zealand, experienced their ‘hey day’ from the 1950s to the 1980s. Although marked by hard work and effort, these years also brought prosperity and new opportunities.
Fully-illustrated, the book combines historical research with the growers’ own words as it presents the thoughts, stories and experiences of these remarkable men; they are true sons of the soil.
The Dominion Federation of New Zealand Chinese Commercial Growers was established on 15 January 1943 at the request of the New Zealand government to support New Zealand’s wartime commitment to supply vegetables to the allied forces in the Pacific. It has been the national representative body of Chinese growers in New Zealand ever since. Its aims were to promote vegetable production, to unify Chinese growers and to promote and protect their interests with government, retailers and other market organisations. The Federation is unique in being the only national Chinese growers’ organisation in the world. For almost 70 years it has looked after the interests of its community and a vital part of New Zealand’s economy. The book covers the Federation’s history including its formation, its relationship with the Dominion Council (now HortNZ), the challenges it has faced and its achievements over the years.
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