In 2020, with the help of a $900,000 Provincial Growth Fund grant, the trust turned a calving operation on a degraded block of land into a beef fattening farm running 950 young bulls on 350ha.
The 1100ha block also includes native and exotic forest and wetlands.
The trust was able to bring the land back from the brink, tidy it up by removing 60ha of gorse, setting up a 40km network of pipes to supply troughs and putting in 57km of fencing.
It was the culmination of decades of alienation from the land for some 1300 Ngātiwai shareholders.
“We basically had no fertiliser for many years, there was only one or two troughs, the fencing was in poor state, gorse took up over a third of the farm,” Wetere said.
“It’s taken a lot to get the pasture quality up and control our gorse as well, but we’re getting there,” farm manager Matthew Payne said.
Kieran Wetere and farm manager Matthew Payne, standing at one of the highest points of the farm. Photo / RNZ, Sally Round
But just as the farm was rehabilitated, it was hit by a devastating deluge in January, a huge setback, but one Payne and his team have taken in their stride.
“It ripped out a lot of infrastructure, laneways, fences, water pumps, and we just got a lot of mud pulled out of swamps and blocked access ways to the farm.
“We had to do a lot of walking and a little bit of kayaking to shift cattle.”
Shifting cattle was a 40-minute job instead of five minutes, “when we kind of didn’t have a lot of time”.
Fence covered in flood debris. Photo / RNZ, Sally Round
The farm was still recovering during Country Life’s visit in the autumn.
Larger culverts had been installed, and roads were being rebuilt with material from the on-farm quarry.
Young bulls in a paddock, part of the Whangaroa Ngaiotonga Trust’s herd. Photo / RNZ, Sally Round
Payne said the new drains had helped the farm come through more heavy rain events over the past few months.
The team was aware that climate challenges would not be going away but still saw “heaps of potential” for the whenua, Wetere said.
A slip scars a hillside on the farm after January’s heavy rainfall.
Aside from beef, horticulture and agritourism – such as mountain biking on the forest tracks – were some of the ideas being floated.
Analysis pointed to a more tropical environment, with even crops like mangoes a possibility, he said.
– RNZ