Country Life

Milk from Murray King's farm on the lower Waimea River flats is crafted into award-winning ice cream. "We had to find a way of generating better income than we would by producing whole milk powder with the major dairy companies," he said.

Milk from Murray King's farm on the lower Waimea River flats is crafted into award-winning ice cream.

"We had to find a way of generating better income than we would by producing whole milk powder with the major dairy companies," he said.

The third-generation farmer wanted his small dairy farm, which is surrounded by horticulture and lifestyle blocks, to remain economically viable, so he co-founded Appleby Farms with his neighbour, Julian Raine.

The challenge was coming up with a unique milk product that they could build a story around.

After a lot of research, including taking part in Te Hono Ideas Bootcamp, they settled on ice cream.

"Because we thought it would be relatively easy, and most importantly, we knew somebody who could make ice cream, which is Kristy Giles!"

Kristy came on board as a co-founder. She is a food technologist and ice cream maker extraordinaire.

That was seven years ago and, initially, Murray said it was a rocky road.

"These things always take longer than you hope and cost more than you expect."

"We built a factory and, you know, steel and concrete isn't the cheapest thing to build, plus all the machinery and the plant that's required to churn ice cream."

The factory in Stoke is only eight kilometres from the milking shed on Murray's farm.

"We moved onto site at the beginning of July 2017 and we were making ice cream by December of that year, so it was quite a project!" Kristy said.

She drives production and development and wants Appleby Farms to be the cream of the crop.

"So I designed how I wanted the factory to be laid out, I formulated the ice cream and now I look after the operations, which is essentially from the farm to the customer."

The business now employs about 10 full-time staff and makes more than a dozen flavours of ice cream. Vanilla and chocolate are the perennial favourites.

So what makes a great ice cream?

"Mostly it's fresh whole milk and lovely cream," Kristy said.

"The quality of your dairy material is critical and because we source our milk from just down the road, that's an excellent starting point."

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A hen rescued from floodwaters in Cyclone Gabrielle is helping bring back life to farms one year on. Hawke's Bay farmer Sally Newall hatched the idea to gift chicks to families impacted by the cyclone to help get them back on their feet and have fun with some feathered friends.

By Gianina Schwanecke

Producer, Country Life

A chook rescued from the floodwaters of Cyclone Gabrielle is now part of a project to hatch chicks destined for cyclone-impacted families.

The initiative, Cyclone Chicks, was started by Hawke's Bay farmer and veterinarian Sally Newall to help bring a bit of light back to families who lost stock and pets during last year's storm.

Listen to Country Life's interview with Sally Newall

A keen animal lover, Newall already had plenty of chickens of her own before deciding to start rearing more to gift to those impacted by the cyclone.

"I thought it would be a nice, practical way of bringing a little bit light into people's lives."

An Orpington hen was the only one of her flock to survive the flooding during the cyclone.

"That surviving Orpington is now hatching chicks to gift to other people affected by the cyclone. It's a really nice circle."

About 160 birds have been rehomed so far, with another 30 or so chicks ready to go.

Newall has been farming out fertile eggs, to be hatched by neighbours' chooks, like the Orpington, as well as rearing some of her own.

She's also managed to source a number of end-of-lay chooks from commercial farms for the project.

Along with the chicken, each family also receives a bag of layer pellets or chick crumb when they take their new feathered friends home.

While chickens were "very far down the line in terms of priorities", those who had received them have already told Newall they had missed having the birds.

"People are just really enjoying having some chooks back in their lives."

It had been an "incredibly hard year" for friends who had "lost everything" in the floods, some of whom were still displaced from their homes.

"For a lot of them, it's not getting any easier.

"Some people are feeling a little forgotten about."

She has been amazed by the community response to the initiative.

"It's become a bit of a community endeavour really. I didn't realise how much other people would want to get involved.

"Some of our biggest supporters are people who have been affected by the flood."

With many families still displaced from their homes, or yet to find rental properties that allow animals, Newall is hoping to keep the project alive until next year…

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

A round-up of the week's agricultural news with RNZ rural news reporter Sally Murphy.

A round-up of the week's agricultural news with RNZ rural news reporter Sally Murphy.

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

A search is underway for descendants of hundreds of British boys sent out for farming training in New Zealand a century ago. Flock House, a flagship agricultural school in New Zealand was set up 100 years ago. What ever happened to its first cadets?

A search is underway for descendants of hundreds of British boys sent out for farming training in New Zealand a century ago.

Dressed in military style "lemon-squeezer" hats, ties and jodhpurs, they were the sons of seamen who had been killed or disabled during the First World War.

It's not known how many stayed and made a successful life farming in New Zealand, according to Alasdair Bettles-Hall, one of the descendants who is researching the stories of the first attendees of Flock House.

Listen to the story of Flock House's first farming cadets on Country Life

The first contingent of 25 lads arrived by ship 100 years ago, headed for the new agricultural training centre in Manawatū which had been set up with money from the wool industry in 1924.

The school, consisting of a grand homestead and 8000 acres, had been established with a 250,000 pound fund - profit from the government's sale of wool during the war.

New Zealand sheep farmers had earlier set up the New Zealand Sheepowners Acknowledgment of Debt to British Seamen Fund for the benefit of dependants of the men in the Royal Navy and Mercantile Marine who had lost their lives to keep shipping lanes open.

"It was realised it would be a help for widows, sometimes with multiple children, that maybe we should bring the children to New Zealand to train them up to be farmers," Bettles-Hall told Country Life.

One hundred and 28 daughters of the seamen were also sent from Britain under the scheme to learn skills like cooking, butter-making, nursing and bee-keeping.

After a year's training at Flock House, being taught every facet of farming in New Zealand by "well-trained agriculturalists of their day", the youths then went on to placements on farms throughout the country.

"The Fund hoped that they would stay.

"You've just had World War One, there's not as many men on the land ... a lot of these sheep stations were in very remote places.

"So I think maybe a subliminal motivation was to provide a labour force for the New Zealand sheep farmers."

Over the next few years, more than 600 youths came from Britain to train at Flock House which went on to become a flagship agricultural training school for the country, throwing its doors open to local cadets when the flow of young men from England stopped during the Great Depression.

But what happened to all those first cadets, some as young as 15?…

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

A distinctive booming sound is returning to the Wairarapa Moana. Most of the surrounding wetlands have been lost after land was drained for farming. Now, after years of rehabilitation work, more of the Australasian Bittern have been heard lately. Country Life heads out at dusk to listen for the matuku-hurepō.

https://players.brightcove.net/6093072280001/default_default/index.html?videoId=6349423490112

Kaitiaki of a world-renowned wetland at the bottom of the North Island are excited about the return of a critically endangered bird, the matuku-hūrepo or Australasian Bittern.

Researchers listening for its distinctive booming call around the Wairarapa Moana wetlands say the population has doubled in the past decade - a sign of hope for the lake.

Wander through the Wairarapa wetlands with Country Life

Arrive at dusk on a clear summer evening at Boggy Pond and the skeletal willows in the water are alive with spoonbills, their mullet-style head feathers and wide beaks throwing quirky shapes against the pinkening sky.

Swans float in pairs across the inlet and gulls and terns dive and cackle in the distance.

The bittern is nowhere to be seen this evening but at last count it appears the matuku population is thriving.

Its whare is the raupō - bulrush - flourishing on the lake edge.

Watch out for something like a stick, Sarah-Jane Jensen urges as we make our way through the head-high thicket.

"They quite literally freeze, with their heads in the air, and they look exactly like a stick."

The biodiversity advisor for the Wairarapa Moana Wetland Project has only seen the bird three times here but she's heard it many more.

The birds' deep throated boom is made only by the males.

"I imagine that in the choir they would be the baritone or the bass," Rawiri Smith (Ngāti Kahungunu ki Wairarapa) told Country Life.

He said the matuku is often described as a lonely bird and referred to in waiata (songs).

Smith has been working with his iwi, along with Rangitāne o Wairarapa, the South Wairarapa District Council, the Department of Conservation and Greater Wellington Regional Council to protect and improve the moana under the wetlands project, set up in 2008.

The bittern are among 50 rare and threatened species spotted at the site which is among 2000 Ramsar sites

worldwide.

The Ruamahanga River, part of the network of waterways and lakes forming the moana, was diverted and stopbanked in the 1960s and 70s to ease flooding and allow farming around the lake.

Runoff from surrounding farms, pests and sedimentation are all threats to the habitat but it appears conservation efforts are working…

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

Justin Gregory tries Daisy Lab's prototype precision-fermented products, which aim to have the texture and mouthfeel of dairy product, but are made without input from a cow.

Emily McIsaac is in an optimistic mood.

The Auckland scientist and entrepreneur is one third of bio-tech start-up Daisy Lab, which aims to change the way we produce dairy products.

Back in 2022 Country Life spoke to Emily about their plans to produce dairy products with the same taste and mouthfeel as cow's milk but without using any cows in the process.

Eighteen months on, Daisy Lab (and Emily) are ready for the next step. The company opened up their lab for guests to taste some prototype products and hopefully find funding to begin making products on a larger scale.

Country Life was there.

Try some precision-fermented cheese with Country Life

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

This week Country Life takes you to an Auckland lab making cheese without the need for a cow, and a start-up in Marlborough which is busy recycling damaged vineyard posts into low cost posts for farm fencing, to wetlands in South Wairarapa where a rare bird has returned.

From an Auckland lab making cheese without the need for a cow, and a start-up in Marlborough which is busy recycling damaged vineyard posts into low cost posts for farm fencing, to wetlands in South Wairarapa where a rare bird has returned.

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

A declaration of drought for Otago and Canterbury unlocking new funding support for struggling farmers.

A chat about the top stories this week from RNZ's rural news team with Sally Murphy in Ōtautahi Christchurch.

From a proposal to cut jobs at the Ministry for Primary Industries, to a declaration of drought for Otago and Canterbury unlocking new funding support, to challenges finding new homes for Kaimanawa horses from the upcoming muster.

While apple growers hoping for a come back year are pleased with feedback about exports from parts of Europe and Asia, a bumper tomato crop has seen prices dive for growers.

Here's this week's rural news.

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

A start-up in Marlborough is busy repurposing damaged vineyard posts, that were used to hold up the canopy, into sustainable posts for farm fencing.

A start-up in Marlborough is busy repurposing damaged vineyard posts into sustainable posts for farm fencing.

Repost is the brainchild of Tasman sheep and beef farmer, Greg Coppell.

He had "a hell of a lot of fencing" to do after buying the 500-hectare property in St Arnaud.

To keep costs down, he turned a pile of broken vineyard posts once used to hold up the canopy into a set of fence posts for the farm.

Recycling the timber was tedious work with hand tools though.

"I got sick of pulling out nails and grinding off nails. So I started building a machine to do it and it just sort of grew from there," he said.

He teamed up with Blenheim viticulturist, Stuart Dudley, to do so. Without him, "there's just no way" it would have come together Coppell said.

After three and a half years the business has come a long way.

A crew of nine work at vineyards across the top of the the South Island using the machinery developed by Coppell and Dudley, which is fixed onto custom made trailers.

There are also crews helping with the Cyclone Gabrielle recovery in Hawke's Bay.

Once the nails are pulled out, the posts are docked to 1.8 or 1.6-metre lengths and trucked to farms around the country for about half the price of new posts.

"They've all got homes before they've been processed because they're cheap. It comes down to dollars."

The wineries pay Repost to process the broken or old posts, so they don't have to send them to landfill.

Pernod Ricard Winemakers is one of his vineyard clients, with a team working on a huge pile of broken posts at their Triplebank vineyard near Seddon.

"We've probably done about 10 or 15,000 in here at least," Coppell estimated, with another 20,000 posts still to be processed at the site.

Tracey Marshall is Pernod Ricard's New Zealand sustainability manager. She said they had been stockpiling the posts, many damaged by tractors and harvesters driving between the rows of vines, for a "very, very long time."

"Over any given year, you can see up to four percent breakage in some vineyards. And when you look at the size of the industry and Marlborough, that's a lot of posts. We're talking millions of posts out there."

Repost is the 2023 recipient of Beef+Lamb New Zealand 's Gallagher Innovative Farming Award and the Wine Industry Award at the Cawthron Marlborough Environment Awards.

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details

From woolshed to bed - two sisters spin their homeware dreams, Young fruit growers climb the hort ladder, A blast from the past - Mustering in Marlborough and a wrap of the week's rural news

From woolshed to bed - two sisters spin their homeware dreams, Young fruit growers climb the hort ladder, A blast from the past - Mustering in Marlborough and a wrap of the week's rural news

Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details