Hands meant for working the land

Maude "Nut" Campbell, 79, was still dagging and drenching up to February. Picture / Alan Gibson

Nut Campbell is an advertisement for country living. At 79, she still rides round her 80ha farm in the Bay of Plenty backblocks on her motorbike.

The fleece-clad widow and mother of four has just caught a possum and is debating whether to shoot it with her .22 rifle. Possums make good dog food, she says, but her son, who lives on 240ha across the valley, has asked her to keep the possum alive for her grandson to see.

Mrs Campbell is more worried about stopping the possum and other pests from eating off her heavily laden grapefruit, lemon and orange trees.

"I won't have a magpie on the place. I'll shoot them," she says.

Today - World Rural Women's Day - honours women such as this tough Nut (whose real name is Maude). Rural women make up more than a quarter of the world's population and produce half of the food that is grown.

In New Zealand, one in seven women lives in the country.

Mrs Campbell has spent nearly all her life on farms and says it is unlikely she would ever leave.

"I'm too much of a country bumpkin," she says with a hearty laugh.

Born in England, she moved to New Zealand with her parents in 1951 and married her South African husband, Colin, after her father bought the farm next to his.

Mrs Campbell's father had always encouraged her to do her fair share of work on the farm.

"You haven't got hands for rings," he told her.

After her husband was crushed by a tractor and almost paralysed, she worked harder than ever. He died in 1987, but she continued dagging and drenching sheep and cattle until February this year, when she retired and passed the care of the stock to her son.

Although she has only ever really known one way of life, Mrs Campbell admires women who have chosen different paths.

"I can't do what city slickers do."

She enjoys an active social life as president of the Te Puke Lyceum women's club and has been a member of Rural Women since 1966.

The group is putting on morning tea, lunch and a show for World Rural Women's Day at her local hall.

So does she ever get lonely living on the farm?

"Never, absolutely never. The birds never stop talking. It's lovely."