Former Westoe farm near Marton to be used by agriculture training school

Jim Howard (left) and Charlie Duncan look across the flats of the Westoe farm toward the Rangitīkei River. Photo / Bevan Conley

After six unsettled years the ownership and use of the former Westoe farm near Marton is now decided.

Part of it has been joined to Otiwhiti Station, which has a group of new owners, and all of it will be used by the Otiwhiti Station Farm Training School - to train agriculture cadets.

The result is what Jim and Diana Howard and their family have all wanted.

In 2014 they gave half the 480ha farm to Lincoln University. It was worth $8.5 million at that time.

The university bought the other half, the Lincoln Westoe Trust was formed and the university's intention was to train young people in agriculture there.

Until that was set up, the Otiwhiti farm school leased the land and used it to train cadets.

In September 2017 the university bailed out, which was a great disappointment to the Howards.

After that, under the terms of the trust, the land had to be handed on to another group with the same aims.

It took more than two years to organise this, and to wind up the former trust and start a new one with the same aims. That was finally achieved two months ago, Belinda Howard said.

She lives in a cottage on the property and now looks forward to seeing successive groups of cadets train there.

"It's a very special place," she said.

Meanwhile, the hilly 1769ha Otiwhiti Station has also had a partial change of hands and its owners, Otiwhiti Westoe Land Company Ltd, bought the lower 250ha of the Westoe river flats.

The upper terrace, with its clay soils, is still owned by the new Otiwhiti Westoe Trust. Its chairman is Ross Hyland and its members are Jim and Belinda Howard, Malcolm Nitschke and John Henderson.

The school is run in a combined effort by Charlie Duncan and private training establishment Land Based Training. Its managing director Rob Gollan is also one of the owners of the expanded Otiwhiti Station.

The school takes on 16 cadets a year, and the addition of the river flats enables them to learn about cropping and finishing stock, as well as breeding them in the hills. The graduates are more rounded as a result, Howard said.

"I went to the graduation last year, and they all had jobs lined up."

The whole Howard family backed the idea of gifting some of the land for a training school, back when Jim Howard suggested it.

"We are happy that we have reached this point.

"Charlie [Duncan] has built something quite exceptional with that school. It's really good to be able to help it move forward," Belinda Howard said.

The Westoe homestead, with its famous garden, is on a separate 12ha. It has been bought as a private house and has had new owners for about two months.

It was built in 1874 by New Zealand Premier William Fox.