HOST: Halo, conservation-minded viewers, and welcome to Planet Earth: Our Loving Home. On this week’s program we journey to the pristine land of New Zealand to visit Shangri-La, a splendid green center promoting vegan organic (or veganic) agriculture.  ( Vegan + Organic = Veganic)

Nestled in the mountains of beautiful northern New Zealand, Shangri-La is an earthly paradise, a １８０-hectare veganic haven that’s been cultivated for the past １０ years by volunteers from the US-based non-profit group Gentle World, which actively promotes the vegan lifestyle.

Shangri-la is home to a vast array of trees, flowers, vegetable plots and fruit orchards.  It is also the site of cooking classes and seminars put on by Gentle World’s volunteers so the public can learn about the many benefits of veganic living.

Today we will hear some veganic gardening tips and get a brief tour of the center, where we will see delicious fruits and vegetables growing abundantly in a loving, Earth-friendly environment. 

Angel (f): Hi everyone and welcome to Shangri-La. My name is Angel and I’m a volunteer for Gentle World, a vegan educational organization and intentional community in existence for ４０ years.

For the past １０ years Gentle World volunteers have spent four to six months of every year in the far north of New Zealand, transforming ４５４ acres (１８０ hectares) of beautiful New Zealand countryside into a vegan educational center where visitors from all over the world now come to learn about the many benefits of veganism and how to live vegan, healthily and joyfully.

As part of our program people learn how to grow their own food, not just organically, which is without the use of chemicals, but also without the use of any animal by-products, including manures, blood and bone meal, fish emulsions, or waste from the slaughterhouse floor.

HOST: Magic is Shangri-La’s head gardener who has been a veganic grower since ２０００. He will now explain the differences between the veganic method of cultivation and conventional organic agriculture.

Magic (m):It’s very similar to organic growing but we have more compassion in our growing methods. We don’t use fertilizers like blood and bone or animal manures from exploited animals.

And we also have compassion with our growing methods in that we take care of the plants without using sprays  and use simple methods that we don’t harm the earthworms and other creatures that are in the soil.

We plant our crops to rotate and grow things at the right time of the year so they don’t get pest problems. And also we keep our plants healthy with green manure crops and rotation so the plants are not susceptible to the fungal diseases and the insect attacks that it’s possible to get.
 
For more details on veganic gardening, please visit
www.GentleWorld.org