BHU 50th Anniversary Celebration
Description
This FREE three part event celebrates the BHU's 50th anniversary, exploring it's past, present and future while nourishing your mind, soul and body.
It starts at the Lincoln Event Centre (in Lincoln township) for a Community Feast in honour of the BHU's past achievements.
From there we shift to the Stewart Building at Lincoln University for a three-panel symposium where we explore current developments at the BHU and future opportunities. The symposium features a wide range of speakers (over 16 of them!) from across the organic, regen and community food sectors.
Finally, we head up Farm Road to the BHU itself, where we will relax with an after party and farm tours.
This event is made possible thanks to our generous sponsors:
Lineup
Harry Baitz
Manager, BHU
Chrystal Te Ohorere O’Connor
Chrystal Te Ohorere O'Connor (Ngāti Hauā, Ngāti Pāoa) is a Lecturer - Pūkenga at Te Whare Wānaka o Aoraki, Lincoln University. Her teaching explores mahika/mahinga kai, the connections between people, places, resources, and kai — alongside He Kai Kei Aku Ringa, a course weaving together Māori worldviews, agriculture, and governance. As a food biochemist, her research centres on sustainable foods and Indigenous culinary traditions. She also chairs Ngahere Kai Trust, working directly with community food forest and mahika kai initiatives. She loves coming to the BHU to teach on mahika kai and Māori values, sharing kōrero on how people connect with whenua (land) and kai through both traditional and contemporary practices.
Gina-Lee Duncan
Te taha māmā Nga uri o Waitaha, Kati Mamoe, Ngai Tahu, Nga Rauru Ko Wereta, Ruru toku ingoa whānau. Te taha pāpā ko Airani, no Kawatiri Tai Poutini Taku kainga. Ko Duncan toku whānau ingoa. No Koukourarata ahau. Firstly a māmā and taua to two children and one mokopuna. Living in my ancestral lands. The reasons to mahi within the Kai security Kai manamotuake and sovereignty space are so my whakapapa continue to have the intrinsic and intimate relationships with our whenua. So Papatuaknuku and Hine a huone remain sacred bearers of nutrition and health and well-being - Hauora. For us and our mokopuna yet to come.
Jade Moana
Jade Moana is a Māori community educator, food sovereignty advocate, social entrepreneur and māra kai activist. Jade is well known for using traditional food knowledge to improve whānau wellbeing, food security, and community resilience. Jade and husband Josh founded Aweko Kai a business focusing on designing and establishing organic Mara kai gardens. Supporting food sovereignty, enabling whānau to grow their own kai. Working with whānau, schools, community organisations, and businesses to build resilient food systems. She also is a lecturer for Te Whare Wānanga o Awanuiarangi teaching Kai Oranga level 3 and 4 in Ōtautahi and online through Aotearoa. Jade has been on the BHU board briefly and is involved with the community Hauhake program with students each season and will continue to develop strong connections with the BHU into the future.
Hayley Guglietta
Hayley Guglietta is a community leader and systems thinker working at the intersection of food resilience, ecological restoration, and community-led development in Ōtautahi Christchurch. She currently serves as Chair of the Richmond Community Garden Trust and the Food Resilience Network, where she supports initiatives that strengthen local food systems, build community capability, and reconnect people with the land. Hayley has played a key leadership role in the establishment of Ōtākaro Orchard, an urban farm, education hub, and emerging social enterprise designed to demonstrate regenerative growing practices in an urban context. The orchard provides a space for hands-on learning, volunteer engagement, and the development of skills in soil health, composting, and seasonal food production, helping to grow both food and community resilience. Through her work with the Avon-Ōtākaro Network, Hayley champions the restoration of the Ōtākaro Avon River corridor as a living system. A core focus of this mahi is the revitalisation of mahinga kai, supporting the return of traditional food-gathering practices, strengthening connections between people and place, and restoring biodiversity along the awa. Her work brings together community groups, mana whenua, agencies, and volunteers to enable collaborative, long-term environmental stewardship. Hayley’s approach weaves grassroots action with strategic thinking. She is passionate about enabling locally led solutions that are practical, inclusive, and enduring, whether through community gardens, urban farms, or large-scale restoration initiatives. Her work reflects a deep belief that food systems are a powerful entry point for wider social, environmental, and cultural regeneration. Her perspective aligns closely with the legacy of the Biological Husbandry Unit at Lincoln University, a pioneering organic training farm dedicated to advancing ecological agriculture through education, research, and practice. Hayley brings a grounded, real-world lens to this kaupapa, bridging urban and peri-urban growing and demonstrating how organic principles can be applied in diverse community settings. She is committed to supporting communities to grow their own food, care for their environments, and take collective responsibility for the health of land, water, and people, now and for future generations.
Brendan Hoare
A former student (1984) and manager (1986-1989) of the BHU, Brendan has been instrumental in shaping pro-organic policy at central and local government levels, and has helped achieve some of the organic sector's most significant milestones both here and internationally. He is the founder and Director of Buy Pure New Zealand, a platform that connects the world with New Zealand's finest organic, natural, and fair-trade products. Brendan Hoare is one of Aotearoa New Zealand's most experienced and committed advocates for organic and sustainable food systems. With over 30 years of practice spanning research, policy, community mobilisation, and international trade, Brendan brings a rare combination of on-the-ground expertise and big-picture strategic vision to everything he does. Brendan's guiding vision is simple and bold: to make Aotearoa New Zealand an organic econation. That vision is personal as well as professional. When he's not working, you'll find him at Long Breath Farm, the certified organic property his family calls home on the West Coast and surfing it's coastline.
Scott Lawson
Scott Lawson is a certified organic blueberry and vegetable producer in Hawke’s Bay. Pioneers in their field, Scott’s property became certified organic in 1994. The True-Earth brand is committed to supplying healthy food from healthy soils for healthy people and a healthy society. Scott has been involved in many farming organisations. Currently, he is a Board Member of OANZ and also active in the Hawke's Bay Vegetable Growers Association, and a Trustee of Hawke's Bay Future Farming Charitable Trust. He is a past Board Member of LandWISE and has served on the BioGro Board.
Charles Hyland
Charles Hyland is a Cornell-trained soil and environmental scientist, organic-sector leader and agriscience consultant based in Auckland. He is Chair of the Soil & Health Association of New Zealand, a Director of BioGro New Zealand, and Founder and Managing Director of Farmetrics, where he works on soil health, water quality, nutrient efficiency, environmental monitoring, organic and regenerative production systems. Charles has more than 25 years’ experience across agricultural science, certification, farm systems, biochar, compost and biological inputs. Before moving to New Zealand, he spent around a decade at Cornell University working in soil biogeochemistry, nutrient cycling, soil microbial ecology, water quality and early biochar research. Since 2012, his work in New Zealand has focused on translating soil and ecosystem science into practical tools for farmers, growers, certifiers, policymakers and community organisations.
Sharon Raszap Skorbiansky
Sharon is a Senior Lecturer of Agricultural Economics at Lincoln University. She has devoted much of her work to production methods and markets that can improve the way we interact with the environment and animals. Prior to joining Lincoln, she was the USDA Economic Research Service organic research economist. As part of that role, she published extensively on organic agriculture's relative cost of production, market prices, adoption of risk management practices, and barriers to transition. She also provided expert advise to other USDA agencies such as the National Organic Program and Natural Resource and Conservation Service prior to the creation of new organic regulation and technical assistance programs.
Charles Merfield
Dr Charles ‘Merf’ Merfield first became interested in organics, along with a small group of fellow students, while completing his Higher National Diploma in commercial horticulture at Writtle College in the UK at the end of the 1980s. A post-college summer job at Sunnyfields Organic in Southampton, turned into a baptism of fire, as the original manager quit and he and Ian Nelson took on the vegetable operation and it’s massive weed problem - which is where Merf’s obsession with organic weed management started. After two years of working insane hours he extracted himself and aimed for Aotearoa where he got a job at Weleda in the Hawkes bay, managing the biodynamic market garden growing for the restaurant trades as well as the medicinal herbs. He then headed south to Lincoln and found his Tūrangawaewae. This included a couple of weeks Wwoofing at Harts Creek Farm with Tim and Rose Chamberlain that turned into a 30+ year friendship, with Merf developing a wide range of weeding machinery and systems for Tim over the decades. The 1994 IFOAM conference at Lincoln University was the start of his involvement at the BHU, demonstrating flame weeding and presenting a paper with Tim. He was actively involved through his Post Grad Diploma and Masters, all the way through to the shuttle diplomacy between the organic movement and the university over the transition of the BHU from Bob Crowder’s reign to the creation of the BHU Organics Trust. He was also involved with Kowhai Farm, a large scale organic farm, joint venture between Lincoln and Heinz-Watties. Returning from another stint at Sunnyfields, he started his PhD at Lincoln as the first BHU Organic Trust scholarship recipient. Much of his PhD fieldwork on organic carrot seed production was conducted on the BHU. After a post-doc at Teagasc (pronounced ch-ag-ers-k https://forvo.com/word/teagasc /) in Ireland as ‘the organic guy’ and some more time at Harts Creek Farm he took up the role of ‘the research guy’ at the BHU founding the Future Farming Centre as the research arm of the Trust. Where he remains to this day supporting organic farming in Aotearoa, through research, extension, teaching and consulting. With the ever growing challenges facing intensive agriculture Merf is also increasingly supporting the conventional cropping sectors as they transition to organic techniques such as biocontrol and intercropping thus helping transform all of Aotearoa to a more organic future.
Angela Clifford
Angela Clifford is the Chief Executive of Eat New Zealand, a not-for-profit food movement working to build a more resilient, values-led Aotearoa's food system. Under her leadership, Eat New Zealand runs a suite of interconnected programmes. These include the Food for Good Programme, a values-based procurement framework developed with foundation partner Compass Group NZ and the development of a NZ Grain Mark, alongside the Foundation for Arable Research, championing local grain production. This year they’ve developed Vote for Kai, a collaboration with other organisations, which is a civic campaign putting food policy on the political agenda. Eat New Zealand holds The Shortest Meal, a public campaign encouraging us to eat New Zealand grown food. The Eat NZ Hui brings together growers, community leaders, story-tellers, chefs and others from across the motu. The Kaitaki is a cohort of over 100 next generation food leaders. Angela's work sits at the intersection of food systems advocacy, procurement reform, and grassroots food sovereignty. She works with local, regional and national groups to re-imagine how New Zealand grows, sources, and values its food. She is committed to her journey towards becoming a tangata tiriti. She also works locally with Food Secure North Canterbury. Alongside her role at Eat New Zealand, Angela runs The Food Farm in North Canterbury, a Permaculture property where she has spent more than two decades growing kai and teaching others to do the same. The Food Farm is both a working example of small-scale, values-driven food production and a teaching space. Angela is co-author, with Nick Gill, of The Food Farm: A Life Growing and Cooking Our Own Food (Bateman), shortlisted for the NZ Booklovers Award for Best Lifestyle Book 2026. It’s a book that draws together her personal story of growing and cooking with the broader case for a more self-reliant, connected food system. Whether shaping national procurement policy or teaching a community group to sow seeds, Angela brings the same conviction: that a resilient food future is built from the ground up, one relationship, one paddock, and one meal at a time.
Jon Manhire
Jon Manhire was part of the original BHU Trust established in 2000 and became the chair of the Trust in 2004, a position he held until 2024 – he finally retired from the Trust in early 2026. Prior to this he was involved in the BHU while a student at Lincoln University. Jon has undertaken a range of activities to support the promotion and adoption of sustainable/organic agriculture in New Zealand and internationally including facilitating the establishment and chairing of the NZ Organic Exporters Group, facilitated the establishment of exports of various organic products from NZ including lamb, fruit and vegetables; led a large comparative research programme into the sustainability of various production systems including organic farms; provided consultancy support to farmers, government and industry to support the development of organic and sustainable agricultural production. His most recent international work has been facilitating the development of the Fiji Government Organic Policy that was released in 2026.
Andreas Wesener
Andreas is Associate Professor in Urban Design at the School of Landscape Architecture at Lincoln University. In his research, he explores approaches for more sustainable and resilient cities. He has gained an international reputation as a leading researcher in integrated green-grey urban infrastructure including urban agriculture, urban and community resilience, governance and participation, and urban heritage, perception and identity. Andreas has been involved in research on urban community gardens and local food systems since 2013; he has published more than 40 peer-reviewed publications including 20 journal papers. He is principal investigator for Lincoln University in the Horizon Europe project “REDESIGN”, a three-year international research project focussing on the transformation of urban food systems involving 12 consortium members from 9 countries.
Wilby Le Heux
Wilby Le Heux is the Garden Manager at Te Waerenga, where he leads an urban māra kai focused on regenerative food production, community development, and local food resilience. Over the past decade, he has helped establish kaupapa-driven initiatives that transform underused urban spaces into productive gardens, developed a financially self-sustaining vegetable bag programme, and supported communities to reconnect with growing food. During this time, he developed a small-plot intensive (SPIN) growing model, leasing and cultivating five different residential backyards to demonstrate the potential of productive urban agriculture. In 2025, Wilby successfully led a community campaign to secure a long-term lease for a 1,700m² growing area within Addington Park, alongside an 80m² building that is being transformed into a learning and connection hub. Passionate about organic growing and healthy soils, Wilby believes farming is about more than producing food—it is also about growing stronger communities. He describes himself as a gardener who is still learning every day and is committed to creating spaces where people, soil, and communities can thrive together.'
Sol Morgan
Sol is an avid gardener, seed saver, educator and dedicated part of the Golden Bay Sustainable Living Centre (SLC) and Golden Bay community. Studying horticultural science at Lincoln between 1989 and 1992 he discovered a love for organics through his favourite tutor and mentor Bob Crowder. The BHU became a haven to explore organic growing, managing volunteers, and making loads of compost. Since then Sol has become a local food activist through working in community gardens to help others learn and grow healthy food. Life has been a balance between parenthood, running his business GroWise Consultancy and running the SLC.
Penny Platt
In her day job, Penny is one of the owners and veggie growers at Untamed Earth Organic Farm. They grow certified organic veggies across three farms across Waitaha to sell through their shop in Christchurch. Penny studied at the BHU in 2010 and started her first business delivering veggie boxes to her friends with the support of the BHU stepping stone program. Penny teaches practical farming skills at the BHU, and is also Chair of the BHU Organics Trust.
Agenda
- 11:30 am - 7:00 pm
BHU Community Feast, Symposium and After Party
11:30 Doors open for the Community Feast at the Lincoln Event Centre 1:15 Community Feast finishes, and event relocated to Lincoln University, Stewart Building 1:50 VC Welcome - Professor Grant Edwards 1:55 Panel One: How can the BHU support mahinga kai, kai motuhake and community food resilience initiatives over the next 25 years? Chair: Harry Baitz (Manager, BHU) 2:00- Chrystal O’Connor, Lincoln University academic and BHU Board member 2:05- Gina-Lee Duncan, Te Waka Kai Ora and BHU Board member 2:10- Jade Moana, BHU Hauhake Programme 2:15- Hayley Guglietta, Chair, Food Resilience Network Discussion amongst panellists, and questions from the audience. 2:50 Short break 2:55 Panel Two: How can the BHU help build capacity in the wider organics and regenerative production sectors? Chair: Brendan Hoare 3:00- Scott Lawson, Organics Aotearoa NZ 3:05- Charles Hyland, Chair, Soil & Health Association of NZ 3:10- Dr Sharon Raszap Skorbiansky, Lincoln University 3:15- Dr Charles Merfield, BHU Future Farming Centre 3:20- Angela Clifford, CEO, EatNZ 3:25- Discussion amongst panellists, and questions from the audience. 3:55 Short break 4:00 Panel Three: Reflections. What has occurred to you today about the needs for a facility such as the BHU? What might be ideas to consider and develop into the next 25 years? Chair: Jon Manhire (Past Chair, BHU Organics Trust Chair) 4:05- Assoc. Prof. Andreas Wesener, Lincoln University 4:10- Wilby Le Heux, Te Waerenga (Addington Farm) 4:15- Sol Morgan, Chair, Golden Bay Sustainable Living Centre (and past BHU student) 4:20- Penny Platt, Chair, BHU Organics Trust 4:25- Final thoughts 4:30 Symposium Ends relocate to the BHU for the After Party 5:00 BHU After Party, at the Biological Husbandry Unit Please note, this provisional programme may change
Tickets for good, not greed Humanitix dedicates 100% of profits from booking fees to charity
