Devastation in wake of urban drift

Te Aroha farmer Stuart King is concerned about falling rural populations. Photo / John McCombe

As a shell-shocked Auckland grapples with how it will cope with a population growth of one million people, the people of Matamata-Piako have the opposite problem.

Matamata-Piako is just an hour and a half down the road from Auckland but its issues are a million miles away.

For the next 30 years, Auckland's population is expected to grow by 30,000 a year. That is about the number of people now living in Matamata-Piako.

The district is home to 32,085 people, including 14,150 rural residents and 17,935 townies in Te Aroha (4048), Matamata (6821) and Morrinsville (7066).

So what will the Waikato district's population be in three decades? Much the same, according to the council's projections. Morrinsville and Matamata will grow slightly, Te Aroha is expected to hold its own, but the rural population is already declining. Dairying, which keeps these towns going, will employ fewer people. As dairy farms amalgamate into larger, more productive units, fewer people are needed to run them. That means fewer families, and fewer kids going to school.

Not only are the farms merging, so are the schools. In 2000, 120-year-old Waihou School merged with Elstow School to form Elstow-Waihou combined school. Waihou's roll dropped from 125 in 1988 to just 31 when it closed.

Te Aroha dairy farmer Stuart King, vice president for Waikato Federated Farmers, grew up in Hororata, west of Darfield in Canterbury. "In my lifetime I saw a declining population and wind-down in the rural community down there. Now, with the growth of Canterbury dairying, I'm seeing a reverse in that."

He's frustrated by people frightened of growth. "Rural schools have had to amalgamate or close down and recently the council looked at rural subdivision rules, supposedly trying to protect the rural area by making minimum titles 40ha. If people want to live in our rural areas we should welcome them and let them."

Matamata-Piako Mayor Hugh Vercoe is a dairy farmer too, but he holds a different view.

"In this area there is more high-quality soil than anywhere else in the country. Lifestyle blocks would increase population but destroy the productive capabilities of the soil. We propose to increase the minimum size that you can have in the rural areas from eight to 40ha. That will not help population but it will protect the soil and the industry that we're so dependent on."

He says population projections reveal the district can expect the proportion of elderly people to increase, an area of concern because many local employers depend on a younger work force. He's talking about meat processors Inghams Enterprises and Silver Fern Farms, Fonterra and other dairy factories.

King hopes that in years to come kids will still be growing up on farms.

"We think the highest use for land is to raise a family on that land. We don't want to see a return to 10-acre lots, but we should allow people to have house lots."