Latest news with #Fruit
RNZ News
29-04-2025
- General
- RNZ News
School breakfasts: 'A really great way to show our community that we care'
Emaa Shelford, Kiritahi Koroheke and Paul Marchioni are preparing the school lunches for the day. Photo: Ke-Xin Li It's 8:30 in the morning and a crowd of students at Melville Primary School are at the breakfast table in the hall. On this Monday it's scrambled eggs on wholemeal toast, with sausages left over from Friday's lunch. With their best vocabulary, the kids describe to me how their food tastes. "Amazing" and "phenomenal" are the terms they felt appropriate. Principal Bronwyn Haitana said breakfast makes a big difference, especially with attendance. "We used to have a lot of people away on Mondays and now Monday is probably our biggest breakfast club and it's just a really fun and happy place to be in the mornings." For the usual breakfast club, Melville Primary receives milk and Weet-Bix through Kickstart - a program co-funded by the Ministry of Social Development, Fonterra and Sanitarium. Last year MSD chipped in nearly $1.3 million for the scheme. The funding for 2023-24 was $1.266 million. Moko and Azaan say breakfast is a time they can spend with their friends. Photo: Ke-Xin Li Melville Primary also has fruit break - which is provided by Te Whatu Ora's Fruit In Schools programme. Te Whatu Ora spent $9,188,644 excluding GST on the Fruit in Schools programme over the 2023/24 financial year. Charitable organisation KidsCan also supplies cans like baked beans. "We sort of mix up from that Fruit in Schools, Breakfast Club, and Kidscan to make up the breakfast. When we have bread leftover from sandwiches the week before, we use that leftover bread for breakfast. We don't have very much wastage at all because we're always making sure that we have better ways of making that stuff used in other ways." Bronwyn Haitana considers her school lucky to be an internal model provider for the Ka Ora Ka Ako programme, which means her 250 pupils not only enjoy hot lunches cooked fresh at the school, but there's also a hot breakfast available at least once a week. In the kitchen is chef Paul Marchioni and his team. Marchioni learnt his skills by helping on the marae and knows how to make a crowd favorite. Emaa Shelford, Paul Marchioni and Kiritahi Koroheke are responsible for cooking for the 250 kids at Melville Primary School every day. Photo: Ke-Xin Li He spends the school holidays refining recipes. "I like to use our moko (grandchild) and whanau to have a try. It's funny as they're really honest, they'll just say, 'that was yuck'. They can provide some good intelligence. Unfortunately for quite a lot of our children, their parents actually can't afford to spend a lot of money on food. So they're cutting back on things like fresh vegetables. Some of the kids didn't even know what they were actually looking at in the lunch boxes that we provide. We have to hide those things that they're not used to eating. So blending and pureeing vegetables and putting it into the main meal, so they don't know it's there." At midday, the children are having pears for their fruit break. "It gives you more energy and you can be healthy," one student told me, and turned to ask his classmates what the fruit was. Arnia and Teiaea are on fruit duty. Photo: Ke-Xin Li Haitana said they use meals as an opportunity to educate the children about healthy food. "When they first started, they weren't used to eating the sandwiches and they were pulling out all the tomatoes and lettuce, and that was actually quite expensive. So we talked to the kids around seasonal foods and talked to them about why we have lots of tomatoes around this time. Now when we don't have tomatoes, they'll ask if tomatoes are not in season, and I'll say, yeah, it's too expensive at the moment. I think that's been really valuable because, before they sort of saw food as something that they just eat but not actually understand." Melville Primary School principal Bronwyn Haitana is in charge of handing out the lunches. Photo: Ke-Xin Li Some children were eager to share what they know about the meals they are having. "To keep our bodies healthy and to make our brains go 'wow'" and "to have energy to do mahi" are some of the answers. The school lunch break is at 1:20pm. While handing out the lunches, Haitana also checks the lunches that children brought from home and swaps out the unhealthy ones for a school-made lunch. This day, she swapped out one student's jam biscuits for chicken rice. Principal Bronwyn Haitana swaps a box of jam biscuits for chicken rice. Photo: Ke-Xin Li Haitana said while the internal model is a lot of work, she wouldn't give it up for anything. "I think I've also changed my attitude from food being just to feed the kids, more to it actually is a part of our school culture. We're an urban community. We do have a lot of people, who I would call displaced, such as people who not necessarily whakapapa back to the Hamilton area. We have a lot of Kainga Ora homes, which is great because it means they're out of emergency housing, but it just means that there are a lot of people who might not have whanau support around them. It's (food) a really great way to show our community that we care about them and their kids." Sign up for Ngā Pitopito Kōrero , a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
The Star
26-04-2025
- Business
- The Star
Ethiopian flower producers express concern over U.S. tariffs impact on exports
ADDIS ABABA, April 26 (Xinhua) -- Ethiopian flower producers have expressed concerns over the impact of newly imposed U.S. tariffs on their flower exports to the U.S. market. Miserach Berhanu, head of the Ethiopian Flower, Vegetable, Fruit, and Herbs Exporters Association, told local media The Reporter recently that the 10 percent tariff levied on goods exported from the East African country is "creating serious challenges for fresh cut flower exporters." While acknowledging the existing three percent duty on flowers to the U.S., the report indicated that this sharp increase, coupled with the new tariff, "is expected to slow the progress exporters have made in the U.S. market over the past four years." Earlier this month, the Ethiopian Ministry of Agriculture revealed that the country earned more than 360 million U.S. dollars from the export of horticultural commodities during the first eight months of the current fiscal year. Flower exports accounted for the largest share of this revenue. Berhanu emphasized that although two-thirds of Ethiopia's flower exports are destined for the Netherlands, the U.S. has become a rapidly growing market for Ethiopian flowers, contributing around 45 million dollars in revenue last year. Expressing concern, Berhanu stressed that the new tariff will likely raise the prices of Ethiopian flowers, ultimately providing a competitive advantage to countries with a geographical edge. In response, Berhanu noted that Ethiopian flower producers are actively working to expand their market reach, primarily targeting Asia and the Middle East, to mitigate the effects of the new U.S. tariffs and boost revenue.
CBC
30-03-2025
- General
- CBC
Why paper crafts and physical books appeal to Canadian writer Brian Francis
E-readers and digital books can often be the more convenient and reliable ways to read today, but Canadian writer Brian Francis still thinks that, "print books really are where my heart is at the end of the day." Francis is the author of the Canada Reads 2009 shortlisted book Fruit and the memoir Missed Connections, which was a finalist for the 2022 Trillium Book Award, recognizing excellence in literature by Ontario writers. He joined Antonio Michael Downing on The Next Chapter to talk about his love of paper as a reader, writer and occasional paper crafter. Here are some of Francis' book recommendations for the love of paper. Trees In Canada by John Laird Farrar "I don't think we can have a conversation about an appreciation for the love of paper without having an appreciation for where paper comes from," said Francis. Trees In Canada is a collection of over 300 different tree species and over 75 years of botanical knowledge from John Laird Farrar first published in 2017. It has since been reviewed and edited by forest specialists today to include an identification key, updated photographs and maps and new tree species. This text provides an in-depth look at the trees in Canada and the northern United States in an accessible format. Farrar was a Canadian forest scientist and graduate of the University of Toronto, dedicating almost 60 years of his life to botanical study. He later served as a lieutenant of the Royal Canadian Air Force in the Second World War, then received his Ph.D from Yale University in 1955. He died in 1996. In reading this textbook, Francis learned to take greater notice of the natural world. "Trees are something that are everywhere but … we don't always pay attention to. In looking at the book, it made me realize too, when I was growing up, we had a white birchbark tree in front of our house and it was a staple of my childhood and my upbringing but I didn't know much about it. In looking at this book, I realized I learned some new things about the white Birch tree. The Notebook by Roland Allen In The Notebook: A History of Thinking on Paper, U.K. writer Roland Allen delves into the history of notebook writing and how it continues to be a relevant medium today amidst continual technological advancement and the "age of AI". Detailing the stories written on paper by Frida Kahlo, Charles Darwin, Agatha Christie and more, Allen reflects on how notebooks have shaped the modern world and how the simple act of writing pen to paper every day can affect our mental health. Francis noted, "With a notebook, I never think about how it might be perceived because it's not written for an audience, it's written for me. We all put on a front to a certain extent in our public selves. The notebook's sometimes are a bit closer to who we really are as people and I think sometimes it's that contrast between our public and our private selves that's so interesting." A Beginner's Guide to Quilling Paper Flowers by Motoko Maggie Nakatani Founding member of the Japan Quilling Guild and all-around paper expert Motoko Maggie Nakatani takes readers through an instructional textbook on the art of quilled flower-making. From roses to wisterias and more, A Beginner's Guide to Quilling Paper Flowers details the history of the craft and how the meditative art form can be used in daily life. "The book has 32 different varieties of quilt flowers that you can make. And what I like about it is that it gives the meaning behind the flower," mentioned Francis. Paper quilling is a craft that he once did as a child and has since returned to. "What I would do is I would make these quilling flowers and I'd write poetry and calligraphy and then I would put it on a little frame and I would give it to my teachers at the end of the year."
