Country Life

A catchment restoration project in the Marlborough Sounds is bringing a farming community together to tackle water quality issues and achieve wider conservation goals

A catchment restoration project in the Marlborough Sounds is bringing a farming community together to tackle water quality issues and achieve wider conservation goals.

The Te Hoiere Project seeks to improve freshwater quality and biodiversity and be a leading example of community-driven environmental restoration.

Karen Morrison's been the project's Linkwater catchment coordinator for three years.

She runs a small dairy farm with her parents, Nigel and Christine. They milk about 220 cows.

Nigel has lived all his life on the property his dad bought in 1950.

"He got the original part of the farm as a rehab farm, as a returned serviceman."

Back then, Nigel says, when developing land a tree would be cut down if it was in the way.

But now he reckons his dad would give them and the Te Hoiere Project, a nod of approval.

"Initially he'd say, 'What are you doing boy?' but yeah, I think if he could see where it's coming from he would be quite proud of it."

Karen has done a great job of motivating local farmers and getting them to commit to the project.

"There are six farms here that are now involved, and initially we decided that we wanted to do some baseline water monitoring to see what the quality was like," she says.

Learning about the health of their waterways gave the farmers a solid starting point to work from.

Karen said some nitrate and E.coli contamination was picked up in the results, but they discovered that it wasn't all from farmland.

"There's a lot of nitrates coming out of the gorse and broom in the forests ... and some of the E.coli is from the deer and the pigs that play in our waterways."

Since then, they've worked together as a group, to sort out what the best way forward is, to improve environmental outcomes.

"There's been waterways fenced off, which we've had funding through the project for, there's a lot of native planting gone in, there's been funding for that too, and most of us have released dung beetles as well. So that was all at the start, and we've now just continued doing that sort of work."

The beetles, which are also subsidised, are known to rapidly break down dung, reducing the time that it is present on the pasture surface, and increasing the turnover of available grazing area.

Karen said it will take at least five years before they'll see any significant results…

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Many wine growers in Australia's largest wine region are in crisis mode due to plummeting prices for their grapes. Chris Archer works in the Australian and New Zealand wine industries and has been following developments.

As New Zealand vintners prepare for their grape harvest, spare a thought for growers over the ditch.

Crisis talks have been held in the Riverland region of South Australia. The problems growers face there are shared by the wider region which supplies almost 70 percent of the country's crush.

The growers who mostly supply bulk wine producers have also staged protests about the rock-bottom prices they've been getting for their fruit, and reports say many are throwing in the towel, leaving grapes on the ground, moving into pumpkins or spraying their vines to stop them germinating.

Our guest Chris Archer works in both the Australian and New Zealand wine industries as a winemaker and consultant and as co-owner of niche New Zealand-based wine company Joiy.

Listen to the interview with Chris Archer

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The Golden Shears is underway in Masterton, and from early Thursday the War Memorial Stadium has been buzzing to the sound of shears, woolhandlers' brooms and the cranking of wool presses.

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Masterton is buzzing this weekend to the sound of shears, wool handlers' brooms and the cranking of wool presses.

The Golden Shears, billed as the world's premier shearing and wool handling competition, has this year drawn around 500 entries, more than 25 percent up on last year.

Go behind the scenes at the Golden Shears with Country Life

The competition attracts top shearers from around the world and has been going since 1961, with grades from novice to open and even a teddy bear shearing contest for the little ones.

The youngest generation also gets a chance to step up onto the boards in the teddy bear shearing competition

Wool pressing, one of the most demanding jobs in the woolshed, is also on display and hotly contested among single and paired competitors.

Squeezing the wool into a target weight, neatly baled, pinned and branded in the shortest time possible is the aim of the game.

The Shears are livestreamed, reaching audiences as far away as Mongolia. A team of Mongolian shearers is here to compete too.

Two hundred of the entrants are in the novice or junior grade, thanks to new training programmes, bringing people into the industry.

Fifteen-year-old Wairoa College student, Ashlin Swann, who won the Novice final, showed it's not all about speed.

She was slowest, shearing the two sheep in just under seven and a half minutes but received only three penalties in the pen where judges check to see how efficiently and carefully the fleece has been removed.

Tama Bartlett has entered the wool pressing for the first time

Shearing is often a family affair and the stands are chock full of supporters.

spectators

Four thousand sheep head through the stadium from farms in Wairarapa and as far south as Otago. It's a well-oiled machine unloading the animals in the compact yard area in the town centre.

The Saturday night Open Shearing Final is the culmination of a year's worth of hard work involving many volunteers and officials.

Defending champion and eight-time winner Rowland Smith has pulled out due to injury, throwing the competition wide open to a raft of hopefuls.

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

Behind the scenes at the Golden Shears, a conservation project in the Marlborough Sounds, crisis among Australia's winegrowers and On the Farm

This week Country Life goes behind the scenes at the world's premier shearing competition the Golden Shears and heads to the Marlborough Sounds where a catchment restoration project is bringing a farming community together.

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

A large blue truck and trailer unit has become a common sight in the Marlborough Sounds as it's barged to farms to pick up and drop off livestock.

A large blue truck and trailer unit has become a common sight in the Marlborough Sounds as it's barged to farms to pick up and drop off livestock.

Local trucking contractor Gareth Parkes has taken to the sea because large vehicles are unable to get to properties in the outer sounds via Kenepuru Road.

The access road was badly damaged during storms in July 2021 and August 2022, and major repair work to the road is ongoing.

"For the first couple of trips, I had a farmer and his tractor come down to make sure I could get up the beach. It was a little bay where they used to launch their boats and whatnot," he said.

Since then, a ramp has been built in Fish Bay that is suitable for all tides and can handle Gareth's trailer, which carries up to 720 fat lambs.

"We're very careful backing onto a barge. A lot of the time I'm doing it in the dark as well. The skipper and I have got a really good relationship - we know exactly what each other's doing - but yeah, it's definitely not for the faint-hearted."

Gareth did 62 barge trips with livestock in the first 12 months after the road was closed, a further 70 trips in 2023 and he's already made a few this year, too.

"Most of the lambs that are trucked and barged out go to Alliance's meat processing plant in Nelson, but cattle also go to Levin or Oamaru."

For farmers, barging out livestock is an additional expense they do not need.

"It costs four to five times more than what it used to, and the farmers have been told the road will be ready for truck and trailer by the end of the summer. But no one knows which summer!"

Check out these videos of Gareth and his truck as he heads to a farm on a barge run by Johnson's Barge Service in Havelock: Video 1 - Video 2 - Video 3

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Rick Martin and Nairn Illingworth farm a drove of happy heritage pigs on their small farm in Marlborough's Onamalutu Valley

Rick Martin and Nairn Illingworth farm a drove of happy heritage pigs on their small farm in Marlborough's Onamalutu Valley.

When Country Life visited it was a hot and dry February day. The pigs didn't seem to mind though.

Weaners wallowed in pools of mud and fossicked in long grass, a sow snored as she fed her hungry litter, while other bigger pigs enjoyed an early dinner.

Listen to Cosmo's interview with Rick and Nairn here.

Rick and Nairn moved to their bushy little farm about 12 years ago. Before that, they ran the Junction Hotel at Spring Creek, just north of Blenheim.

Rick says transitioning from hospitality to farming wasn't too challenging.

"When I left school I went dairy farming for a few years, and Nairn's parents had a farm at the top of the Waihopai Valley, so we both have a farming background."

Now they run a Duroc boar, six breeding sows and whatever offspring they have.

"We can get up to 60 and we've been bigger than that, but since Covid we've dropped the numbers back," Rick said.

The piglets love wallowing in mud.

The couple take a nurturing approach towards their animals and try not to get too attached, but this doesn't always work.

When sows have litters that are too big to feed, Nairn cares for the hungry runts in the house, until they're strong enough to go back to the paddock.

"They sleep by the fire for the first couple of nights and then we have other areas with heat lamps, and it's funny, the TV's going or there are dogs barking, but they sleep through it," she said.

Most of the food the pigs eat comes from local businesses.

"We collect the spent barley from DNA Brewing, we get whey from Cranky Goat cheese, vegetable scraps from a couple of greengrocers in town and we also get bread, so it's all recycled," Rick said proudly.

"He's a very good-looking pig that one," Nairn said of one of the bigger piglets with large black spots, "rather cute when he was smaller but now they're big and growing out nicely so they will be going to Harris Meats within the next few weeks.

"When they're in the paddock, they don't look that big, but once they're on the hook, they are a lot bigger."

Rick spends a lot of time caring for his pigs.

Depending on how fast they grow, pigs are at the farm for six and eight months before going to Harris Meats in Cheviot for slaughtering.

Rick takes them to the abattoir himself, so it's less stressful for them…

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Tartan, bagpipes, sheafs and cabers were out in force at the Turakina Highland Games, billed as New Zealand's longest-running such event. They're into their 160th year.

Tartan, bagpipes, sheafs and cabers were out in force at the Turakina Highland Games, billed as New Zealand's oldest continuously running highland games.

Come along to the Turakina Highland Games with Country Life

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Dressed in six yards of Scottish tartan "to try and keep the wind away", Callum Carn cuts a dash as he waits his turn in the A Grade piping competition.

The tradie from Wellington first played here as a boy in 2008 and hasn't missed a year since.

The event, billed as New Zealand's oldest continuously running Highland games, was held this year on a cool, windy day in January.

Now in its 160th year, it is a not-to-be-missed mark on the calendar for many - including Bruce Cawood, who's been coming since 1955.

"It's home for me," he told Country Life.

Cawood is a descendant of one of the district's Scottish pioneering families, who bought their land sight unseen while they were still in Scotland.

"It's the oldest continuous Highland gathering in New Zealand. It's not the first one that started but it's always gone on."

Tartan embellishes the welcome sign to Turakina, a small settlement of historic weatherboard buildings at a crossroads south of Whanganui.

Up behind the main street, at the Domain, you can see a kiltmaker at work and learn about the different tartans from clan representatives like Ian Dickson of clan Keith, who is serving up kedgeree in a marquee.

He's there to answer questions about genealogy, clan history and tell stories - "some of which may be true".

Three of his grandparents were Keiths, "so I was kind of born into it."

"I was kind of curious about grasping for the 'Y' chromosome - where have I come from - and took on this role as the convenor for the clan in 2012."

Back in the day, there used to be an event like this on every provincial anniversary - "huge and filled with bicycle races and waka races, a lot of drinking, a lot of story telling", he says.

Over at the Women's Institute tent, Gillian Butcher and other local members are selling freshly baked scones and homemade jams.

The games are a chance to boost the group's profile and pick up a few members.

Butcher has also been coming since she was a child, and feels interest in the games is growing as people want to understand more about their heritage…

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

This week on Country Life, how stock are barged in and out by sea after roadways are blocked, a visit to the Turakina Highland Games, and a chat with heritage pig farmers in Marlborough.

This week on Country Life, how stock are barged in and out by sea after roadways are blocked, a visit to the Turakina Highland Games, and a chat with heritage pig farmers in Marlborough.

Listen to Country Life

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

Ancestors roots run deep at Wairau Pā vineyard, Farming to the beat of his own drum, Farmers from around the world: Jana Gäbert, dairy farmer from Germany and the Rural News Wrap.

Ancestors roots run deep at Wairau Pā vineyard, Farming to the beat of his own drum, Farmers from around the world: Jana Gäbert, dairy farmer from Germany and the Rural News Wrap.

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