Business Rural Autumn 2021

| 11 Water monitoring ‘really exciting project’ Students from Menzies College in Wyndham get hands-on experience monitoring the impact of land use on water quality. Virginia Wright RURAL PEOPLE » Dave Diprose I n 1994 Dave Diprose left his sharemilking job in Matamata looking for the opportunities he believed could be found in Southland, where dairy was in a phase of expansion. After six good years of sharemilking things ground to a halt when the NZ Dairy Group took over the Southland Dairy Company and a moratorium was put on conver- sions. “So there was no growth, “explains Dave, “and ironically for us we ended up in a sort of no-man’s land where we didn’t have a job and we didn’t have a farm, so we were between a rock and a hard place.” By then Dave had been married for four years and had two young children so when the oppor- tunity came up to buy a small farm in Emerdale, in the Pourakino Valley, he and his wife Joanna decided to go for it. “It was a typical south island dairy farm with plenty of ragwort and plenty of potential. It had around 230 cows, a house, and a cowshed that needed some attention. It was very daunting but we bought it through tender and it was either that or give up farming altogether.” Giving up farming wasn’t an option. As a fifth generation farmer it’s clearly in his blood but also by then Dave had travelled and worked on farms overseas and realised that he had a true love for farming, and in particular farming in New Zealand. “I came back with a real passion for our country, and our resources, and an understanding that the way we’re farming here doesn’t need to be European.” Having been supported into the farm by the bank the Diproses found that support was lacking when it came to getting the capital needed to make the changes required on the farm. “We had to do it through blood, sweat and tears and no money. I threw everything I had into the farm and we both worked huge hours to get it to where it needed to be.” As Dave puts it with a laugh: “I reckon if you’re not living on the knife edge you’re taking up too much room.” Hence, anchored by Joanna’s steady support, Dave twice put everything they had on the table with the knowledge that it needed to go well or they were in real trouble. The second time was with the purchase of a 56 hectare farm in 2007 in Wyndham: again a small farm with plenty of potential needing plenty of work to bring it to the fore. Again their hard work paid off, and this time there was the additional bonus of Dave being able to realise a personal dream of working with Menzies College, and the local Runanga, to give the pupils hands-on experi- ence of monitoring and understanding the impact of land use on water quality. “That’s actually a really exciting project,” ex- plains Dave,“because they’ve come out of a typi- cal rural school downturn and they’ve re-identified “I see rural kids losing their identity, their sense of who they are in this big world, so it’s really rewarding to be part of getting them to engage with their own environment and help them to understand why it matters.” For Interisland Livestock and all cartage enquiries for Waikaka Transport please call 027 616 4380 or 03 207 2885 For all enquiries for Milnes Transport & Waituna Transport please call 027 245 0662 or 03 224 6154 For all your cartage need s • Bulk cartage • Certified GPS Sowers • Blower Truck • Local Stock • Interisland Stock Rabco Ag Ltd 03 225 8488 admin@rabco.nz Phone Eddie: 021 362 766 Complete Silage, Balage, Cultivation Spraying & Effluent Contracting Service • Log Cartage • Stock / Bulk • F ertiliser • Gravel • Contracting • ransporting T 0800 22 5899 www.dtking.co.nz 03 225 8356 Otautau 03 225 5899 Pukemaori 03 234 8120 Riverton themselves and what their niche is in the world, which is around agriculture and science. They’re doing some really cool stuff and the kids are turning up to school not because they like Maths and English but because they like being inquisitive about the world around them.” Although his own children don’t seem to be pur- suing a rural lifestyle, with Liam (24yrs) a software engineer, Alex (22yrs) studying sound engineering, and Chelsea (20yrs) studying hotel management, Dave’s very happy to have this local involvement, as he explains. “I see rural kids losing their identity, their sense of who they are in this big world, so it’s really rewarding to be part of getting them to engage with their own environment and help them to understand why it matters.”