Papawhakaritorito Charitable Trust was established in 2021 to support kaupapa Māori research, education, and development connected to Māori food sovereignty, Hua Parakore, and tino rangatiratanga.
The Trust exists to advance Indigenous-led approaches to food, soil, and wellbeing that challenge extractive and colonial food systems, and instead centre care for whenua, people, and future generations.
Papawhakaritorito is one expression of my wider mahi, grounding my work in lived practice, research, and community-based action.
Founding Trustees
Papawhakaritorito was founded by Dr Jessica Hutchings (Ngāi Tahu, Ngāti Huirapa, Gujarati) and Associate Professor Jo Smith (Waitaha, Kāti Māmoe, Kai Tahu).
Our work together is grounded in kaupapa Māori and Indigenous pathways that support food sovereignty, seed saving, soil health, and collective wellbeing. We bring together academic research, lived experience, and community engagement to grow practical, values-led responses to food injustice.
Previous collaborative work includes the publication of Te Mahi Oneone Hua Parakore: A Māori Soil Sovereignty and Wellbeing Handbook and the project Storying Kaitiakitanga. We are currently co-leading Kai Atua: Food for Hope and Wellbeing, a three-year kaupapa focused on Indigenous food systems and wellbeing.
We acknowledge the support of the Todd Foundation in enabling this mahi.
What is Papawhakaritorito?
Papawhakaritorito is the name of the whenua and whānau food farm where Jo and I live and grow kai. It is a small-scale Hua Parakore food system that nourishes soil, food, and people, and offers a lived example of Indigenous food sovereignty in practice.
The name Papawhakaritorito was gifted in 2007 by the late Dr Huirangi Waikerepuru. It refers to the place where the heart of the flax bush sings, a metaphor for whānau strength, collective wellbeing, and holding fast to kaupapa Māori ways of being with the land.
Papawhakaritorito represents both a physical place and a philosophy. It is about care, responsibility, and reciprocity, and about growing food systems that honour whakapapa, whenua, and future generations.
Our kaupapa – Seeding Hope
Seeding Hope is a living kaupapa grounded in soil, seed, and the leadership of Māori women. It responds to the urgent need to protect Indigenous seed knowledge, restore soil health, and challenge systems that disconnect people from whenua and kai.
Through Seeding Hope, Papawhakaritorito supports kaupapa Māori approaches that centre care, reciprocity, and intergenerational responsibility. The kaupapa brings together research, storytelling, collective action, and community-led practice to strengthen food sovereignty from the ground up.
At its heart, Seeding Hope recognises that soil and seed are not resources to be extracted, but relations to be protected.
Seeding Hope is one of several kaupapa held within Papawhakaritorito, alongside research, education, and community-based initiatives.
Featured in the media
Jessica’s work through Papawhakaritorito and Hua Parakore has been featured in local and international media, sharing Indigenous perspectives on soil, seed, and food sovereignty.
‘Not like the rest of New Zealand’: reviving ta rē Moriori on Rēkohu
In an excerpt from Pātaka Kai: Kai Sovereignty, Dr Jessica Hutchings shares insights from Māui Solomon (Moriori, Kāi Tahu, Pākehā) and his wife Susan Thorpe (Pākehā) about their efforts to revive ta rē Moriori on Rēkohu. They discuss the importance of reconnecting with Moriori language, culture, and whenua, highlighting the resilience of Indigenous knowledge in the face of historical challenges.
Growing kai sovereignty, RNZ Saturday Morning
Mihingārangi Forbes interviews Dr Jessica Hutchings on RNZ about insights from the new book: "Pataka Kai" Growing kai sovereignty". Reflecting on growing up in the quarter-acre backyard generation and how māra were once commonplace in most homes around Aotearoa, Jessica shares the practical ways small-scale Indigenous growers are connecting with the wisdom of their tūpuna to create diverse local food systems for themselves, their whānau, hapū and iwi.
Pātaka Kai: Growing kai sovereignty, 95bFM
Dr Jessica Hutchings explains why the capitalist food system is broken and how Indigenous women around the world are rising with a call to rematriate our seeds, soils and foods. Sharing insights from "Pataka Kai: Growing kai sovereignty", she reveals the diverse ways Indigenous communities around Aotearoa are, through growing one māra at a time, putting foods back into the hands of Indigenous communities. This is the heart of kai sovereignty - a return to ancient wisdoms and to living, eating and breathing the cultural food scapes from which we come.
