The Country 24/06/25: Jim Ward talks to Jamie Mackay

Jamie catches up with a former schoolmate, who happens to be the manager of Molesworth Station, New Zealand’s biggest farm.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Here's a bloke that I went to school with and
Gore Saint Peter's College, were in the first fifteen together
and James wad I was your captain. But I used
to be terrified of your father, the late Ron Ward,
who was an All Black who played in the forwards
and the backs, and he used to run up and
down the sideline. Bless him. He's no longer with us,
and if we made a mistake he would give it

(00:21):
to us. And he was no fan of mine because
I was around the corner kicker, following in Barry John's footsteps,
and Ron reckoned you needed to be a toe hacker
like Fergie McCormick. Good afternoon, mate, good to.

Speaker 2 (00:32):
See you again.

Speaker 1 (00:34):
Yeap, So is not what you got to say about
your father. He was a bit of a legend coach
Southland and he was in the Great Southland shield sides
when they held the shield pre war and post war.

Speaker 2 (00:45):
Yeah, Rugby was a big part of our family all
the way through with my uncle Kevin and dad. So
what uncle Kevins is Kevin Skinner?

Speaker 1 (00:54):
All right? My god, you do come from Rugby Royalty.

Speaker 2 (00:57):
Well it never carried on through my so never would
no As you know, rugby was a big part of
our life from that agent stage, and we did look
up to a lot of peers. Ken Stewart was an
absolute mentor, you know, someone I looked up to all
the way through my rugby career.

Speaker 1 (01:14):
So yeah, and the Bell for Rugby Club just celebrate
one hundred and twenty five years over the weekend. In fact,
I think some of them are still going. Hey, great
to see you here. And one of the reasons you're
here at the Primary Industry Awards tonight is because you've
been nominated for the Champion Awards. So there's doctor Robin Dines,

(01:35):
yourself and David Wheeler. You don't know who's won. I do,
but if I tell you, I'll have to shoot you.
But I thought i'd get you on because we caught
up over a coffee this morning. You're running Molesworth Station.
It's our biggest station. Now here's a question for you,
James or Jim as you're known these days. Is it
a farm or is it a tourist venture?

Speaker 2 (01:55):
It's everything. We've set up four pillars farming, recreation, conservation
and cultural and that's how we see it. We've got
five million owners. But the farming program does maintain the
asset and it does pay for a lot of the
work on the property. We welcome the public. We really
want them on board with us. We want them to

(02:16):
come and see what they own. And it's a big
part of our life. Yeah, the public are a big
part of our life.

Speaker 1 (02:23):
Is Palmer who owns Molesworth? Or is it the Department
of Conservation? Well, what's your ownership structure?

Speaker 2 (02:30):
Structure? The owner substructures. We've got five million owners. That's
how we work.

Speaker 1 (02:34):
So are you getting into carbon farming at all? Too
high to grow trees up at Molesworth's.

Speaker 2 (02:40):
We grow far too many warding pine trees. That there
be one of our big problems right through the high
country bit, especially with US and.

Speaker 1 (02:46):
Around US as you realize all those wilding pines are
sequestering carbon, you're potentially putting the planet at risk by
chopping them down.

Speaker 2 (02:54):
Yeah, I guess you could say that, Jamie. Only you
would say that though, But I guess we have a
big caution is that if we don't do anything about
the wilding pine trees from our boundary through to the
sandws in Kaikuru, in twenty years, we solid pine trees
and I don't think that's what news yellow need wants.

Speaker 1 (03:13):
Mine Jereff carbon farming continues on its mery way. That's
what we might.

Speaker 2 (03:16):
Have Canada pine.

Speaker 1 (03:19):
Trees from the Alps to the ocean. Hey, so talk
to me about the journey. What did I use that
word for? I hate it. From being a schoolboy rugby
player at Saint Peter's in the nineteen seventies to running
New Zealand's biggest farm, it's quite a story.

Speaker 2 (03:32):
Well, yeah, I guess shepherded my way through the early
years and did a bit of a stint at Lincoln.
Didn't learn a damn thing, but that wasn't unusual for
my age and stage of life. Then I had an
opportunity to move to the North Island to run a
property in the back blocks of Wirral in the Rocketree Valley.

(03:53):
And then I've been there two years and one day
the company who was working for come and see me
at a Wednesday and said they were thinking of buying
Warrior Station. If they got it, I was to go
there as manager. And on the Friday they came and
got a hold of me and said you've got to
be there by Saturday. So that's how fast that took.
So we were there for four years. The property was

(04:15):
in on sold and we worked for a family, the
Plymouth family in one of their properties on the Napier
type road Kelly Land Company, and had that for nine years.
And then we never applied for a job in my life,
but then Molesworth came up and we applied.

Speaker 1 (04:30):
And why not run the biggest farm in the country.

Speaker 2 (04:33):
Well, we always thought their career path, my wife and I, Tracy,
we always thought that the sort of farm we could
afford to buy and the one we want to run
were totally different. So we've looked at other things to
do with our lives. But running a property like this
was a real challenge, and the challenge doesn't get any
less as you go on either, because if anything, it

(04:56):
gets greater.

Speaker 1 (04:57):
James Ward, Jim Ward, so good to see you again
after all these years, and good luck tonight at the
Primary Industry Awards. You're up. You're one of three finalists
in the Champion Award, so we will see you later
on tonight