The small Māori trust of 53 shareholders owns a 138ha effective dairy farm at Okoroire near Tirau in the Waikato. The trust is more like a traditional private owner-operator structure, with no specific governance advisors. Instead, the trustees, including Ron and Tuhi Watkinson, oversee the daily running of the operation with their sharemilker.
“Because we are so small it’s just run by family, there are no professional people who help us or run it,” Tuhi says.
“What I’m most proud of is, being family-owned, we make a lot of our own decisions.”
The land was originally owned by Tuhi’s great grandfather Tewi Hoera, who passed the land on to his daughters. The land has been run as a dairy farm since the 1920s and was leased out until Tuhi’s father took over the property in 1971. Tuhi was 16 at the time and wasn’t very interested in milking cows, but they have worked hard to improve the property and as her interest has grown she is now quite protective of the land and the farming business.
“It’s our own land. It’s the land that my great-grandfather owned. It was never land that was given back to us.
“We have done a lot of work on it, it’s a beautiful farm. It’s taken us 45 years to get the farm to where it is now and we don’t carry a lot of debt.”
The trust has employed a 50:50 herd-owning sharemilker for almost two decades on the farm, milking a herd of 430 Friesian crossbred cows producing 174,405kg milksolids.
The DairyNZ System 2 operation is mainly grass-focused with palm kernel used on the shoulders of the season. Grass silage and maize are made on the farm and their 13ha lease block. They also grow 6ha turnips and 4ha chicory to protect the farm against dry summer conditions.
Plans to extend the farming business by buying more land are on hold in the dairy downturn.
Tewi Trust has an excellent business model generating a good net margin, even when dairy prices were poor, which was a testament to their capability, Ahuwhenua chairman Kingi Smiler says.
The Trust is a great example of how a small and determined group of whānau have, over many years of adversity and challenges, achieved their dream of farming their own land successfully and profitably and have kept a strong focus on Māori values.
Tewi Trust has learnt a lot about strategy, governance and succession entering the Ahuwhenua competition, and they have become good friends with the other finalists, Tuhi says.
