EP 5 - Landcare strategies from re-building in Gisborne to soils in Central Otago

Guests:

1. Carlos Bagrie, Royalburn Station, 'Nadia's Farm' & 2024 Nuffield Scholar
2. Greg Coppell, Repost
3. Alex Campbell, Awapapa Station 

Hosts:

1. Rebecca Greaves, Editor, Country-Wide
2. Sarah Perriam-Lampp, Managing Director, CountryWide Media

A picture of a thousand poplar poles a year says a thousand words when it comes to how Alex Campbell’s Awapapa Station near Gisborne was relatively intact from major damage after Cyclone Gabrielle particularly when viewing comparable land in the district with much less or no planting. 

Read Alex’s story here: https://country-wide.co.nz/right-tree-right-place/ (Subscriber Only)

Editor of Country-Wide, Rebecca Greaves along with her co-host Sarah Perriam-Lampp discuss the rebuilding of the East Coast and how to build back our farms with more resilience.

The episode unfolds into a great catch-up with Greg Coppell from Repost who has been involved in rebuilding sheep & beef farmers fence lines with over 13,000 recycled vineyard posts which led to them taking home the Beef + Lamb NZ Gallagher innovation award.

Read Greg’s story here: https://country-wide.co.nz/a-better-use-for-broken-posts/ (Subscriber Only)

To wrap the episode, Rebecca Greaves gets a real, raw, behind-the-scenes chat with Carlos Bagrie from Royalburn Station near Queenstown known from being featured on the hit TV programme, Nadia’s Farm. We hear about Carlos’s journey from the sheep farm in Dacre, Southland to buying Royalburn and throwing himself into farming boots and all, even without the camera’s rolling! And why is he doing a Nuffield Scholarship on waste streams we can turn into profitable revenue streams as well as direct-to-consumer opportunities for farmers.

Visit Royalburn Station https://royalburn.co.nz/ 

Subscribe to Country-Wide magazine for $59 for four issues annually: https://country-wide.co.nz/shop/ 

Key Chapters of Interest

15:30 Rebecca chats to Carlos Bagrie, from Royalburn Station

40:00 Sarah hears about Greg Coppell from Reposts journey re-fencing the East Coast after the cyclone

50:00 Alex Campbell from Awapapa Station, Gisborne talks through their right tree, right place landcare strategies that saw their property relatively unscathed from the cyclone. 

SUBSCRIBE TO Country-Wide’s Email Newsletter here

 

A word from our sponsor

On a mission to help lower the impact New Zealand’s viticulture industry has on the environment, Repost are repurposing their waste timber wine posts into quality, low-cost resources for Kiwis.

Greg and Dansy Coppell needed 30km of stock fencing for our 500-hectare sheep and beef breeding farm in the Howard Valley on a tight budget so they turned to discarded vineyard posts.

A stockpile of posts at a local vineyard in Marlborough was found and days spent picking over the pile and loading up the truck, returning to the farm to repurpose the broken 2.4 vineyard posts into 1.8 and 1.6 m half and quarter rounds – it was tiresome but rewarding work.

The posts are used on the steep hill country, rolling and river flats of the farm and they work well across all terrains; rocky, granite and clay soils. The posts helped to completely redesign the farm’s paddocks, maximising pasture use and accommodating all stock classes.

So Dansy and Greg were keen to see if there was a way to make this work on a bigger scale, particularly as they knew the viticulture industry disposes of 1000’s of tonnes of useful durable wood into New Zealand’s landfills every year.

Visit https://www.repost.co.nz/ 

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