Philippa Stevenson: High heels go down a treat on the farm

Until recently a woman in a rural supply store dressed in business suit and high heels would have stood out like a pink sheep or a polka dot cow.

Now she and her streetwear-clad husband are more likely to be seen for what they are - lifestyle block farmers popping in between their jobs in town and home in the country for sheep drench or fencing wire.

But please can they have it by the millilitre and the metre.

Waikato lifestyler Kate Brennan says one measure of how lifestyle block owners have become accepted in the farming scene is the changed attitude in that former stronghold of large land farmers - the stock and station agency.

"People will talk to you now about lifestyle farming where once they would have sniggered. And they stock products in packages and lengths to suit lifestylers," says Brennan who, as the operator of website lifestyleblock.co.nz, gets daily insight of life down on the small farm.

Lifestylers are now recognised as an economic force, she says.

Her website, set up four years ago, was a response to demand for information for those who didn't know one end of a cow from the other but suddenly needed to know where the medicine went.

It has also proved to be an indicator of lifestyle farming trends with busy discussion forums and help files on topics ranging from forage to hedgehogs now attracting around 2500 visitors a day.

And where once it was run on a shoestring, it now boasts the support of major agriculture companies such as fencing manufacturer Gallagher and agchem company Dow AgroSciences.

At present, lifestyler numbers are being boosted by Britons, Dutch, South Africans and Americans. "To them that's the New Zealand lifestyle. They can't believe their luck, that they can buy a piece of land and have space and a healthy environment to bring up their kids."

Last year, the switch to lifestyle farming prompted the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry to research smallholdings and their owners in an effort to determine the attitudes of the increasingly influential sector to critical issues such as biosecurity and land use.

It wasn't easy to define a lifestyle block. MAF's study found nearly 140,000 lifestyle blocks with a mean size of 5.53ha and covering more than 753,020ha listed on the valuation roll.

Around 6800 new lifestyle blocks are registered on the roll each year, adding more than 37,600ha to the sector annually.

MAF divided the sector into three main categories - lifestylers, hobby farmers and smallholders, who tended to be more seriously involved in production, had larger holdings and longer term occupation of the land than the first two groups.

Peace, quiet and tranquillity, as well as space, privacy, openness, no close neighbours and clean air were the most important reasons for living on a smallholding, MAF found.

Sheep and beef were the main livestock on small blocks, though many had goats. Fruit-growing and vineyards were the principal activities for those with plants but no matter what they raised, few people lived solely on farm income.

"Many work in urban areas while choosing to live a rural lifestyle," MAF said. Their main difficulties were unexpected costs and dealing with local councils.

Brennan believes transport costs are a major issue.

"There's no local transport [in the country] and often people find that as the kids grow up the mother especially becomes a full-time chauffeur."

And the cost of facilities for, say, three animals can be as much as for 30. Brennan spent $7000 on stockyards when she had just three cows, though they are now used for more.

Getting a few sheep shorn or getting hay made from a pocket-handkerchief size paddock can be just as challenging, but a growing service sector is responding to the call.

Former champion shearer Edsel Forde spotted the opportunity 10 years ago, says his wife Margaret. Forde weaned himself off the shearing circuit around three years ago to set up as the Lifestyleblock Bloke.

"It's like a rural hire-a-hubby," says Margaret Forde. "Mostly he is dealing with the women, too, because they tend to do the organising or they run the block while their husband works in town."

Forde has shorn everything from a single pet lamb to 200 sheep, helps with animal health issues, does fencing, haymaking, pasture management and buys and sells sheep for his customers.

Some people, though knowledgeable about farming, want to live in the country without hassle and are pleased to find someone who can do the tasks they haven't got time for.

Others don't want the responsibility of their own animals and lease their blocks for grazing.

Some lack basic farming knowledge and Forde says a couple of people have dubbed her problem-solving husband their knight in shining armour.

Brennan says her website's discussion forums fill a similar role, offering advice and understanding.

"People can be isolated on their farms and we give a damn if they have to put their dog down or their goat died during kidding. And it's not just a virtual community. People get together and swap plants and share practical advice."