They’re busy writing notes on their kitchen white board about what they need to do before leaving it in early February.
Their Manahune farm, a central player in the spring, early summer Glenmark Drive on-farm lamb sale round, has been sold.
“We’re shifting our entire lives to Auckland,” Stu Thomson, whose family has owned the farm for 102 years, said.
The Thomsons’ have three daughters, Dana, Bree and Mia, and they’re all at university in Auckland. Their studies cover law, psychology and engineering and career options do not include returning to the family farm.
“It was time for us to decide what we’ll do and we decided if we’re going to make a change we should do it earlier rather than later and make an adventure of it,” Thomson said.
Home for the first year or two will be a rental property.
“Retirement is not on the radar so we will get busy and see where it leads. It’s exciting.”
Sue is an American who grew up in the suburbs about an hour out of New York but is proud to have secured her New Zealand passport about a year ago. Thomson met her on his OE and says he then chased her half way round the world before they ended up back in NZ in 1992.
Sue’s been happy farming in North Canterbury but is looking forward to seeing more of her daughters and being able to walk to a lot of places around Auckland.
“I didn’t know anything about farming but tried hard to adapt. I didn’t get to drive the tractors but finally learned how to handle the stock.”
Thomson says she played a full part in farming being a partnership game.
Their major remaining on-farm task is to sell the 3500 crossbred ewes they own. About 5500 lambs were sold, a lot more than usual, because of the farm sale, at the on-farm sales on November 20.
He said the strong sheep market is a double-edged sword.
“It’s a good time to be leaving because you can sell them at a good price but with stock prices where they are it’s also a great time to be farming.
He’s pleased a young local couple are taking over the farm while the industry is in a good state.
“I’m hoping it is not at the top of the cycle but that we might have a new norm, with sheep farming back in fashion and able to give other sectors a run for their money. I’d really like to match dairying returns and it’s heading the right way.”
He’d like to think the industry can have a $150 lamb for the foreseeable future, allowing sheep numbers to at least stabilise around current levels, though he doesn’t see a big rebuild of the flock occurring.
This is partly because farmers are working through the best land uses and the compliance issues around that.
“I think it’s a young man’s game now, not just physically but they have a higher tolerance to the compliance and the paperwork. It’s going to be a bigger part of farming and you have to adapt to it. Farming will be a compliance-based industry and that will be good for the image.”
Thomson’s biggest regret around farming is the apparent breakdown in the urban/rural regard.
“We all used to be proud of farming but now people are happy to give farming a kick and farmers are unfairly painted as polluters.”
Every farmer he knows is dedicated to looking after their land.
“I hope that I’ve left this place better than when I got it, as I know my parents did.”
Sheep and beef farmers are being lumped in with dairy farmers but the polluter taint was unfair to most of them as well.
Manahune typically had the biggest number of lambs and the best prices at the annual Glenmark sales in the 10-years or so since they started, after a neighbour suggested a change to the normal practice of price-taking at the works.
The practice worked well in both good and bad climate and pricing seasons.
“In a good-price, grass-market year like this one you get great returns and in a tough year when there’s little feed about it’s a fantastic way to unload the stock and clear the decks early. Then you sit tight and wait to start again.”
When Thomson took over the farm in the early 1990s the farm ran mainly Corriedales but he changed to crossbreds and heavier lambs with higher fat levels to take advantage of the warm country and earlier finishing.
“I learned not to chase markets because my experience was that by the time you’d made the change the market was gone. I learnt that you settle on a system and become very proficient at it and it’s worked well for us.”
Good sale prices are a result of paying attention to detail and focusing on animal health.
The 379ha Manahune property has run deer and cattle in the past, along with sheep, but has been a sheep-only farm in recent years.
