{"id":430564,"date":"2026-05-16T12:40:23","date_gmt":"2026-05-16T12:40:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/430564\/"},"modified":"2026-05-16T12:40:23","modified_gmt":"2026-05-16T12:40:23","slug":"country-life-northlands-storms-test-award-winning-farm-with-million-dollar-herd-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/430564\/","title":{"rendered":"Country Life: Northland’s storms test award-winning farm with ‘million-dollar’ herd"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"A<\/p>\n

\nFence covered in flood debris
\nPhoto: RNZ\/Sally Round\n<\/p>\n

Last year’s win of a prized trophy for M\u0101ori farmers is still sinking in for Northland farm trustee Wess Wetere.<\/p>\n

“Having a million-dollar herd and having made a profit was something we looked forward to in five years, not three – none of us were really farmers.”<\/p>\n

\"Wess<\/p>\n

\nWhangaroa Ngaiotonga Trustee Wess Wetere
\nPhoto: RNZ\/Sally Round\n<\/p>\n

The farm, owned by the Whangaroa Ngaiotonga Trust, was awarded the Ahuwhenua Trophy in 2025<\/a> for its beef operation near the settlement of Whangaruru on a finger of land jutting out from Northland’s east coast.<\/p>\n

“We knew what a cow was and a bull was, but we didn’t know whether we’re going to milk cows, whether we were going to do what the previous tenant did,” Wetere told Country Life during a tour of the farm.<\/p>\n

Follow Country Life on Apple Podcasts<\/a>, Spotify<\/a>, iHeart<\/a> or wherever you get your podcasts.<\/p>\n

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 350 hectares.<\/p>\n

The 1100-hectare block also includes native and exotic forest and wetlands.<\/p>\n

They were able to bring the land back from the brink, tidy it up by removing 60 hectares of gorse, setting up a 40-kilometre network of pipes to supply troughs and put in 57 kilometres of fencing.<\/p>\n

It was the culmination of decades of alienation from the land for some 1300 Ng\u0101tiwai shareholders.<\/p>\n

\"Young<\/p>\n

\nYoung bulls in a paddock, part of the Whangaroa Ngaiotonga Trust’s beef herd
\nPhoto: RNZ\/Sally Round\n<\/p>\n

“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,<\/p>\n

“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.<\/p>\n

\"Kirean<\/p>\n

\nKirean Wetere and farm manager Matthew Payne standing at one of the highest points of the farm
\nPhoto: RNZ\/Sally Round\n<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

“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.<\/p>\n

“We had to do a lot of walking and a little bit of kayaking to shift cattle.”<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

\nA creek near the farm, near Whangaruru, in full flood in January 2026. It is normally two metres wide.
\nPhoto: Supplied\n<\/p>\n

\"A<\/p>\n

\n

Photo: A slip scars a hillside on the farm after January’s heavy rainfall\n<\/p>\n

Shifting cattle was a 40-minute job instead of five minutes “when we kind of didn’t have a lot of time”.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Payne said the new drains had helped the farm come through more heavy rain events over the past few months.<\/p>\n

The team is aware climate challenges will not be going away but still sees “heaps of potential” for the whenua, Wetere said.<\/p>\n

Aside from beef, horticulture and agritourism – such as mountain biking on the forest tracks – were some of the ideas being floated.<\/p>\n

Analysis pointed to a more tropical environment, with even crops like mangoes a possibility, he said.<\/p>\n

Learn more:<\/p>\n

Find out about the Ahuwhenua Trophy here<\/a><\/p>\n

Sign up for Ng\u0101 Pitopito K\u014drero<\/a>, a daily newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Fence covered in flood debris Photo: RNZ\/Sally Round Last year’s win of a prized trophy for M\u0101ori farmers…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":429607,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[48,47,42,43,49,46,44,45,40,38,41,39],"class_list":["post-430564","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-audio","tag-current-affairs","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-podcasts","tag-public-radio","tag-radio-new-zealand","tag-rnz","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/430564","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=430564"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/430564\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/429607"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=430564"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=430564"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=430564"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}