Skype+Sessions



Retro Organics Mr Robin Grear, Gore, NZ



Mr Robin Grear operates (A business) which is an Organic Farm in Gore, NZ with his wife: Louis. This means that the farm is all organic and doesn’t have chemicals or pesticides. This includes the animals, products, even the fence posts! He decided to change to an organic farm as both Robin and Louis lost their fathers to liver cancer. They thought that it could of been caused by the food they ate, so they wanted to produce better food but in an organic way. His farm was part of the TV programme: Rural Delivery. Our teacher Mrs Stevens though that his story came into our Topic: Our Living World very well and so contacted Robin. They decided that it would be great if we skyped each other.

The Skype Session:

On 2nd June Mrs Stevens skyped Robin. We had to come up with questions to ask Robin when we skyped him. Room 13 came in to watch the skype session. They even asked some questions. The questions that Room 14 asked were:


 * How has technology helped with the marketing for your products and the establishment of your business?
 * What makes your farm organic?
 * What cheese is the hardest to make and why?
 * Since I was diagnosed with cancer, I would like to know what type of cancer your fathers died or?
 * On average, how much cheese to you make each day?
 * Is it more expensive to run an organic farm?
 * What are the benefits of farming organically?
 * What do you do to keep your stock healthy instead of using pesticides?
 * Is it easy running an Organic Farm?
 * How has changing to an organic farm affected your income?

We all gathered a lot of information from the questions asked. It was fascinating to learn more about Organic Farms as most of us had no clue as to what it was.

I felt that the skype session went well although there is room for improvement. We could maybe be more organised when it came to questions as we had to do them quickly and so some questions were asked that shouldn’t of. Overall I feel it went well and it was a good experience. I can’t wait until we skype more experts.