Anna Blair loves the variety offered by her job as manager of the family farm. While each day presents a new challenge, it also brings the benefits of lots of time spent in nature.
Five-year-old Chloe McKelvie loves sheep. Her mother, Rachel, recalls Chloe crying as a baby but after showing her the sheep from the window, she’d immediately stop.
Nothing quite prepares you for the dramatic views that unfold from the highest point of Silver Fern Farmers Dan and Tam Jex-Blake’s Gisborne property, their lush home base for supplying Silver Fern Farms with its award-winning lamb.
This year, community-minded Silver Fern Farmers Fiona and Nelson Hancox will welcome the extended family to their award-winning farm, Kowai Downs, for a special Christmas feast.
The mention of a serial entrepreneur who founded a highly successful vodka brand could call to mind images of your typical city slicker. It might surprise you then to learn that Geoff Ross has always had agricultural aspirations.
Henry (6) and Forbes (5) Mackay have deep roots in the lakes, valleys and sheep stations around Wanaka. Their grandmother Sally explains that the family connections go back to 1907, when her great-grandfather bought Glendhu Station and later managed Mt Pisa and West Wanaka stations.
Originally the “worst piece of land” in the district, the Galletly family have worked on their Waiau farm for generations, turning it around to win the 2018 Silver Fern Farms Plate to Pasture Award.
For those who think the tradition comprises a father passing on the farm to his eldest son, meet the mythbuster. The family of Hilary Hansen’s mother, the Averys, has farmed the Haupouri Station for seven generations – since the early 1860s.
Christmas Day is on the horizon, and award-winning Silver Fern Farmers Maurice and Renee Judson have already planned a wonderful feast that the whole family is sure to enjoy together.
Soon into our tour of Nigel and Leanne Woodhead’s 400ha Milton farm, the conversation turns to the topic of the crop he’s been growing to feed his animals.
You can’t get more Kiwi than Whangara Farms. Three iwi farms came together to protect, improve and sustainably develop the land for future generations.
As Charlie, Phoebe and Archie Hay return from a busy day at school, they run up the dusty winding road that travels across rolling green fields dotted with sheep and turn into their driveway on the family Silver Fern Farms ‘Springbank’ farm in North Otago, just out of Oamaru.
“If you want anything done, you ask Sarah.” That’s a common phrase around Wanstead, southeast of Waipukurau, where Sarah Coleman and husband George farm a 780ha sheep and beef property.
You can’t get more Kiwi than Whangara Farms. Three iwi farms came together to protect, improve and sustainably develop the land for future generations.
Lilly and George Douglas-Clifford play hide and seek in their grandparents’ backyard in North Canterbury’s Greta Valley. The children – the seventh generation of this Canterbury farming family – are excited that Santa is coming soon.
Welcome to a new era in farming, where the focus is about a sense of community, people and partnerships. Silver Fern farmers, William and Emily Beetham have set themselves high expectations at Brancepeth, which is one of New Zealand’s oldest stations in Wainuioru, situated 15 minutes east of Masterton in the Wairarapa.