Business Rural North Winter 2021

4 | RURAL PEOPLE » Richard Webby Untapping a farm’s Richard Loader Freshly shorn mixed age ewes on hill country at Ruakaka, west of Gisborne. ANNUAL SALE: FRIDAY 4 th JUNE, 12 noon All Bulls Semen Tested, plus BVD Tested & Vaccinated Free Delivery North Island and to Picton INSPECTION & ENQUIRIES WELCOME: Proud to supply Richard & Amanda with KJ Genetics KayJay steakhouse Q352 Richard Webby with son Beau (6) putting ewes through a gate with Mia 10 and Angus 8 on the hill in the background. We haven’t turned the financial side of things around yet but that will come. So I’m looking forward to the next four years when we start seeing some results coming from what we’ve done.” Development has been relentless with a lot of kanuka scrub being cleared to make better use of the land, and paddocks have been subdivided. Fifteen kilometres of new fencing has been put in this year, last year it was ten kilometres and another ten the year before that. “There’s a lot of reversion fencing. We have a big boundary with the Hangaroa River and there are lots of PMA (Private Management Areas) which can’t be developed and none of that had been fenced. I have three main tributaries that come out of the farm and we’re working on retirement areas around them. Once we get through next year with another fifteen kilometres of fencing we will be getting to a stage where we can drop down to five kilometers a year.” But perhaps the biggest impact has been the development eight kilometers of fenced track that goes over the hill country and has shaved thirty minutes off the journey which can now be done by ute, tractor or motorbike. “We haven’t really started replacing old fences yet, they aren’t too bad in most places. There will always be things to do. I have more sheep and cat- tle yards to build but they are not huge jobs.” While Richard is busy making a difference on the farm, Amanda provides valuable support on the administration side of the business – a good team. Making a difference is also about helping non- farming people understand more about farming. One of Middle Mount’s directors used to be the local DHB Chairperson and through him medical students in their final year of placement in Wairoa/ Gisborne have the opportunity to visit the farm on their last day of placement. This provides Richard the perfect chance to showcase the farm and farm life. “We get about twenty five of them at a time about three times a year. We shear some sheep and do a dog demo. We get a lot of good feedback about showing these students what happens when you shear a sheep and where the wool comes from. Everyone gets a chance to try shearing a sheep. But it’s more the fact that they get it explained to them that a sheep being shorn is not being tormented and cut to pieces.” Richard’s passion for his work and his lifestyle is infectious – farming is all the better for having him. A fter a thirty-minute phone conversation with East Cape sheep and beef farm manager Richard Webby, any doubt about his passion and love for what he does vanishes like autumn leaves blown in a nor’west wind. Richard tells me that when he was little all he wanted to do was be a farmer, and now at the age of 36 he still cannot think of anything else he would rather do. “I really love seeing change for the better in a property. You know, go to a farm that hasn’t seen a lot of love, that’s been through a lot of leases and changed ownership and just needed the capital to put into it, to express the potential out of it. “I’ve worked on farms and managed farms that had owners who had no capital and didn’t put any- thing into the farm. So you were just battling away trying to get the best results out of nothing.” Gisborne born, bred and schooled, Richard spent the first few years of his life on a farm before his parents moved into the town. But his grandparents had a sheep and beef farm just out of Pahiatua and Richard spent every spare moment he had on that farm mostly spraying gorse but also learning farm basics. Shepherding in Gisborne and the Wairapapa was followed by a couple of years playing footie over- seas before returning in 2005 to help his grandfa- ther run the farm after he suffered a dozer accident. Eighteen months later his grandparents sold the farm and Richard was on the road again eager to develop his farming skills, along with a bit more ‘paid rugby’ overseas. July 2017, together with his wife Amanda and their four young children Mia, Angus, Beau and Jed, Richard was drawn back to the Gisborne area as Farm Manager on a 2000-hectare property Ruakaka station sixty kilometers west of Gisborne. Owned by Middle Mount Ltd, a company that owns a number of properties in the region, the farm’s 11,700 stock units are owned by Ruakaka Farming. “It was the right job and there’s great opportunity with the company to be more than just a farm man- ager. This particular farm needed a lot of love and a lot of financial investment as well. I had owners with money, I had the vision and we put a business plan together. “ At the moment we’re turning the farm around.