Central Hawke's Bay's Mangarara Station, "The Family Farm", will feature on this Sunday's episode of Country Calendar on TV One at 7pm.
Greg and Rachel Hart and their three children farm Mangarara Station which sits on the shores of Horseshoe Lake in Otane, Central Hawke's Bay and promotes sustainable farming and regenerative agriculture.
The Country Calendar episode will highlight The Family Farm's regenerative agriculture principles, which focus on building soils, restoring watercourses, and encouraging biodiversity, while reducing dependency on outside inputs, improving livestock health and increasing farm yields and profitability.
The couple made their farm operations more environmentally responsible and sustainable 15 years ago. All the meat at The Family Farm is produced using regenerative farming principles, such as a holistic grazing, that sequester carbon in the soil.
The 500 cows, 100 pigs, 1000 breeding ewes and chickens at Mangarara are moved around constantly to maintain tall pasture which has deeper, more complex root systems which in turn act as a natural filtration system for any farm water run-off, as well as protecting against evaporation and soil degradation.