| 45 A humbling experience for Te Opu Bryce is the 4th generation family member to farm the land. Richard Loader CENTURY FARMS » Te Opu For Northland farmers Bryce and Aneta Lupton, attending this year’s Century Farm Awards held in Lawrence in May this year was a humbling experience and brought home the tenacity of the farming forebears of all recipients. Bryce, the 4th generation family member to farm the land, says that when some families collected their award there were three generations on stage, and that’s when you appreciate this is something very special indeed. “The biggest thing we got from the stories told on the night was the struggles of the pioneering families, from breaking in the land right through to on-going farm development. If it was not for the tenacity of our forebears to persevere through thick and thin the farms would not be in the same families hands todays, and how special that is. That’s something that’s becoming rarer and rarer in today’s world. I said on the night that my greatest achievement on the farm has been farming the land of my forebears. We’re just a link in the chain along the way.” The Lupton’s farm, Te Opu, was purchased by James Trewin on the 22nd December 1896 for £1400, and comprised of 749 acres at Marohemo on the upper reaches of the Arapaoa river, on the Kaipara harbour, north of Auckland. At that time the land was mostly scrub and fern with pockets of native bush. With the help from locals the land was cleared and farming began firstly with milking cows to supply cream, and then sheep and cattle which are still farmed today. With no roads in the early days, supplies were barged in from Helensville, across the Kaipara harbour, up the Arapaoa river, then up a side inlet to the farm where it was met by boat by the family. Each successive generation over the last 128 years has provided a piece of the puzzle to make the farm the beautiful productive operation that it is today. In 2014, along with some equity partners / investors, Bryce and Aneta bought the family farm, which now encompasses 950 acres. While still passionate about farming, Bryce acknowledges that in recent times that has started to wane. “The body is starting to give out, and then there’s the red tape and everything else we have to deal with. I’ve been here nearly forty years, and have put my mark on the farm to where I am super proud of it. The most important part of a farm is the land. The families at the awards, would not be on the “Proudly supporting Bryce and Aneta Lupton’s farming business” 31 Years assisting Northland Farmers PO Box 433 Kaitaia same bit of land if the farming practices were not environmentally sustainable over the generations.” Bryce adds that in the next few months Te Opu will be going on the market, lost forever to the family. “The sums of money involved in buying farmland compared to its earning capacity are out of kilter. There’s nothing more demoralising than spending the next forty years working for the bank, and you won’t find another generation prepared to do that. So we will see the demise of a lot of family farms, which are the back bone of New Zealand agriculture. I will come back one day and this land will be full of houses.”
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