40 | Perfectly suited to growing the crop With a 120-150 day growing duration, kumara are harvested from early February. Sue Russell South of Dargaville, in what is affectionately known as the kumara growing region of New Zealand, sits Walden Farms, extending over 180ha of land perfectly suited to growing the vege root crop. Trevor Walden says the farm is perfectly situated to grow great Kumara, given the rich sand-loam top-soil of the river plains. He concentrates on growing two varieties, Owairaka Reds and Beauregard Orange; the latter he describes as a little more challenging to grow as the bugs love them. Given Kumara enjoy frost-free conditions and warm summers the national crop is almost entirely grown in the region, making its contribution to Northland’s economy significant. “This area is ideal, not only the soil and sub-soil conditions, but the growing window is quite large. We start working on our propogating beds July and August and start planting at the end of September through to early December,” Trevor says. With a 120-150 day growing duration, kumara are harvested from early February. During the planting phase Walden Farms engages about 30-40 people and when its time to lift the tubers four harvester machines are in action. “We’ve conducted a few trials with automatic harvesters but you always need the people. Our staff are a mixture of locals and backpackers and we provide our own self-contained accommodation on the farm. It’s great because we have people from all over the world spending time with us,” Trevor says. The industry up north has also evolved, moving away from a larger number of smaller growers to about 30 signficant kumara farms. Once removed from the paddock all kumara go into cool-stores on the site. This is essential to maintain their freshness and their size when lifted from the soil. “Kumara diminish in size if they are stored in ambient. When delivered straight to the cool-store where, they are brought down slowly to 14°cel, they retain the same nutrition and condition as though just harvested.” Walden Farms has one cool-store on the property and leases others. Asked about volumes harvested, Trevor quotes in 500kg bins amounts. In any given season the yield can fluctuate between 1800 and 2500 bins. “We belong to Kaipara Kumara, a co-operative where the packhouse decide on volumes we are going to sell.” RURAL PEOPLE » Walden Farms Trevor says the land he grows kumara in is second to none in the district. The soil is extremely free draining, coping better than some with severe weather events. “We’ve positioned ourselves with our cool-store capacity and the land we’re growing on to be extreme-weather tolerant. It means when other crops are impacted, we’re in a strong position to gain a greater market share when prices are higher.” When Cyclone Gabrielle arrived, it caused wide-spread devastation to many growers in the district. In the case of Walden Farms, Trevor estimates they lost about 25% of their crop but within the packhouse we had about 80% of all the kumara grown in that season. At any given time, of the total land footprint of the farms, 100ha is growing kumara in any given season. Along with seasonal staff, Walden Farms engages a full-time mechanic in the workshop to maintain the planting and harvesting gear, packhouse and cool-store facilities and two other workers maintaining the property. For a man who left school at 15, with no qualifications, Trevor reckons he’s found his niche, working on the land. There’s been a lot of hard work coupled with the seizing of opportunities that has taken the business to where it is positioned today, something Trevor is very proud of. Son son stuart and his wife Naumai are playing an important role in running the farm - Stuart as operations manager and Naumai responsible for accounts, inductions and payroll. “It means my wife Sue and I can start to wind down to retirement. This is a good time in our business journey.”
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