Elite award had humble beginnings

Margaret and Gerry Sainsbury at this year's Napier Port Primary Sector Awards, which were attended by 450 people. When he won the inaugural Hawke's Bay Farmer of the Year title in 1972 there was no ceremony, just a presentation at a meeting. Photo / Warren Buckland

Hawke's Bay Farmer of the Year stalwarts Gerry and Margaret Sainsbury won't be surprised if there are more than 300 people at this year's winners' field day later this month.

But they were surprised when they hosted the Field Day 44 years ago, after winning the inaugural title in 1972.

A former Tikokino sheep and cattle farmer now living at Westshore and with his wife at the latest award presentation two weeks ago, Mr Sainsbury recalled how the competition blossomed from comparatively modest beginnings, quickly showing why it would become one of the most revered honours in New Zealand farming.

The first presentation was at an annual meeting of the Hawke's Bay A and P Society in the Waikoko Room at the showgrounds in Hastings. Mr Sainsbury was the first recipient of the E.B. Hindmarsh Memorial Salver.

It was presented along with another salver "to keep", and $500 from the Stock and Station Agents Association, which compares with the modern-day Silver Fern Farmer of the Year package worth $35,000 presented to deer farmers Grant and Sally Charteris, also of Tikokino, at the culmination of what is now known as the Napier Port Hawke's Bay Primary Sector Awards.

There was however a mystery prize for the the inaugural Farmer of the Year - the field day that followed.

"We thought there'd be a few farmers, a few tyre-kickers maybe, about 40-50 people," he said.

"Because it was the first one, nobody really had any idea what to expect."

The weather was shocking, but it didn't seem to stop anyone.

"As it turned out, there were about 350," he said. "Extraordinary, and it's been about the same ever since."

It was July, he said, with Landrovers the farm transport of the day and the visitors somehow fitted into a shed.

Mr and Mrs Sainsbury had been farming at Kiwitea in northern Manawatu when they decided to move to Hawke's Bay in 1961, purchasing 952 acres [385ha] about six miles [9.5km] north of Tikokino, to use the imperial measures of area and distance which still applied at the time.

They changed the name from Auchenglen to Branksome, after where his father emigrated to New Zealand and started farming as a cadet, and it could have been all over in the first year, amid what is now regarded as the worst drought in Hawke's Bay in the last 60 years.

"We arrived there in May," he said. "It started getting dry about September, and it didn't really rain again until the next May."

They survived other droughts, by the type of good management which would be noted by the Farmer of the Year judges, and they worked through the boom years as the sheep population rocketed to a peak of 70 million, including the annual ewe fairs in Waipukurau which carried more than 100,000 head in a day.

Gerry Sainsbury was a farmer at Tikokino, Central Hawke's Bay in 1972, when he won the first Hawke's Bay A&P Society Farmer of the Year competition.

Mr and Mrs Sainsbury have sons Richard and John and daughter Belinda still in Hawke's Bay, along with five grandchildren. None went into farming, although both sons studied at Massey University.

The couple sold and moved to Napier in 2002, but the property remains intact and is now farmed by Scott Pease.

The Farmer of the Year award stemmed from talk among a small group who wanted to commemorate the life of E.B.(Tuki) Hindmarsh, who had farmed Alnwick at Otamauri, near Sherenden.

The result was a competition aiming to promote high standards of agriculture and pastoral farm management and production, by identifying each year a highly efficient farming operation and farm manager in the Hawke's Bay area, thought to have been the first competition of its type.

Mr Sainsbury couldn't recall how he became aware of the competition or how he entered, but the start was to submit details of the farm's finances over the previous 2-3 years, part of what is now a well-established and mainly unchanged formula.

The foundation judges were Don Mouat, of Mangaorapa, and Ivan Martin, of the Rural Bank, who undertook a series of visits to farms of the shortlisted entrants.

Mr Sainsbury would later also be a judge, in 1992-93.

- This year's Silver Fern Farmer of the Year Field Day, originally scheduled for next week, will now be held on May 17. Farmers will bring their own quadbikes and helmets, with a large marquee on the airstrip.