Country Life

An estimated 80,000 to 100,000 tourists cut through Randall Aspinall's farm each year. What is it like to farm with so much activity on your doorstep?

Tapawera dairy goat farmer Tracy Hay has given each of her hundred or so kids a name. The self-confessed 'goatie' has hand-raised Tinkerbell, Treasure, Tambourine and Truffle et al so that they are completely focused on her.

Every one of the estimated 100,000 tourists heading to Mount Aspiring National Park each year travel through Randall Aspinall farm. When tourists spot his stock in the river, he'll sometimes hear about it on the news.

Dung beetles are a natural and efficient way to to get nutrients down into the soil, keeps pastures clean and, in turn, help mitigate runoff into streams, says Dr Shaun Fogie of Dung Beetle Innovations.

It has been so wet in Gisborne that farm bikes can't be used in places and farmers are having to saddle up their horses. Marlborough started off wet and ended with frost and a fresh skiff of snow on the ranges.

Federated Farmers in Bay of Plenty has asked schools to exclude calves from their annual Ag days.

Shaun Fogie had an interesting stand at the National Agricultural Fieldays. He was selling dung beetles. He says a farm stocked with dung beetles means less nutrient run off into waterways, and pastures are cleaned up so the grass remains palatable for stock.

Everbrook Dairy Goats in Tapawera is the home to a herd of nearly 100 goats and each of them has a name. There's Tinkerbell, Treasure, Tambourine and Truffle and more than 90 others all farmed by self-confessed 'goatie', Tracy Hay. "I hand raise my kids so they're completely focused on me," she says.

Geoff Laurent credits the agricultural event Fieldays with helping him grow his farming and veterinary equipment business into a multi-million dollar enterprise. He's been every year since it began.

Sir William Gallagher won't miss a Fieldays – he's been at all 50 of them. And he's not alone. Country Life meets Sir William and some other exhibitors who come back to the agriculture event year after year.