Whangara Farms

2019 Sheep and Beef Finalists

Whangara Farms

Whangara Farms is a partnership of three Māori Incorporations. In 2006, Whangara B5 and Pakarae A and Other Blocks formed the original partnership. In 2015, Tapuwae Whitiwhiti joined and Whangara Farms Partnership was established. This effectively brought the three major Incorporations of Ngāti Konohi back under one management system.

The partnership allows the three partners to join commercially, but also retain their own identity. Ownership of the land was not transferred. Rather it was placed at the use of the partnership. This results in each Incorporation retaining their lands, their own share register and effectively their own autonomy.

Whangara Farm’s vision is to be “an outstanding business delivering on-going sustainable returns”. We moved away from using the word agri-business to business as we look to develop our commercial activities to be wider then just agriculture. Whangara Farms management is strongly based on using science, technology and data collection to improve decision making.

We have developed comprehensive Land Environment Plans for all of our five business units. These documents now play an important part of our planning activities. Prior to completing these reports, we had developed a pole and willow tree nursery. We are now looking to develop nurseries on each of the five business units. We recently resolved to retire 400ha of coastal property and let this revert following the recommendation in the Land Environment Plan.

We commit to a Values Day with all staff and 24 governance representatives. These are invaluable in getting our total team together to work through what is important as values to each participant. At the 2017 Values Day we also brought in a local historian who spoke about some of the places of significance on the properties, what are the signs of previous occupation on the lands and how the old people would have farmed the land. This provided some important insights to all in attendance.

The three partners predominately meet social responsibilities. They collectively support Whangara marae, four other marae in the rohe, Whangara Church, and the local rescue helicopter service. In addition to this Whangara Farms supports community activities such as Dog Trials (with the 2018 National Dog Trials being held at Whitiwhiti), projects with Whangara School and horse sports.

Whangara Farms has also been a significant contributor to research and development in the region. Whangara Farms has been a Beef and Lamb demonstration farm, Beef and Lamb innovation farm, Beef and lamb beef progeny test site, McDonalds sustainable beef project (being awarded a McDonalds flagship farm status in 2018, the first such farm outside of Europe and the 28th internationally to attain that status), Farm IQ focus farm, AgResearch pasture plot trials and AgResearch forage plot trials. In all we have held over 30 field days for the local community in the past 10 years.

Key facts:
8,500 hectares, 6,900 hectares effective.
75,000 stock units: 45,000 stock units sheep, 30,000 stock units cattle.
A good balance of land with flat and steep land.
Soils silt loam, sandy loam, Taupo airfall tephra and alluvium.
17 full time employees.