Taiao strategy ‘can take us to a different place’

The strategy, which has been under development for more than a year, will set out a management framework for how the incorporation will exercise kaitiakitanga of 42,000 hectares of whenua from Ohakune to Whanganui.

The framework will also describe how the organisation, as one of Aotearoa’s biggest farmers – responsible for 70,000 sheep, 4000 beef cows, 700 dairy cows, 3000 beehives and 728 hectares of woodlots – will seek to achieve this in a commercial environment.

Environmental planner Tina Porou has been engaged to help develop a mātauranga-led strategy based on Ātihau-Whanganui values and principles, and its determination to ensure that activities to create wealth and wellbeing for more than 9000 shareholders are environmentally sustainable.

Board chair Mavis Mullins says the Taiao Strategy will consider all aspects of farming, set a ‘platinum standard’ for best practice and establish a mandated position on kaitiakitanga to inform business decisions.

“Although prevailing farming philosophy came with the settlers, tangata whenua have maintained a deep connection with the natural world and can front-foot future business through the lens of Whanganuitanga,” she says.

The pasture-based farming business works hard to ensure everyone involved understands the kaupapa and tikanga that shareholders want applied to everyday business.

“The Taiao Strategy will codify where mātauranga and farming best practice meet. Our expectations as a kaupapa-driven whānau business are that our activities cause no harm.”

“This thinking brings you back to the basics. If you have unhealthy soil you will not have healthy pasture or animals, but our fertiliser bill came down last year as a result of being more precise about application.”

She says the aim for some time has been to do more with less.

“Less impact means fewer livestock. We’ve pulled back stock numbers, aiming to do better with the ones we have. Stock units have dropped but productivity has risen.”

“We’ve retired land that isn’t suitable for pastoral farming to let it regenerate back into the kind of ngahere that it should be. Some is used to harvest mānuka honey – sometimes you give something up and you get twice as much back.”

“At the end of the day our people need to find benefit. How do we respectfully cause no harm to Papatūānuku but provide benefit to our hapū and whānau? Do dividends come at the expense of Papatūānuku? Where do we lie on that? Hard questions will be asked.

“Once we have worked through these things, our Taiao Strategy will become a pou for strategic planning, investment decisions and setting milestones.”

Initial wānanga have been held with shareholders, farm managers, staff and governors to understand aspirations for guardianship and protection of the whenua. The process of sharing, listening and discussion helped determine baseline kaupapa for a draft strategy, which is now before the board for further work before being presented to shareholders.

The draft will provide the impetus for wider discussion on an approach which Tina Porou describes as ground-breaking.

“What the incorporation is doing is trying to decolonise agribusiness. Many other trusts, incorporations and mainstream farms are interested in whether they can use a similar model,” Tina said.

“I’ve done this type of work for several organisations but the organisation’s kaitiaki focus has allowed us to really extend ourselves back to who we are. It all goes back to whakapapa and whenua. Ātihau-Whanganui Inc has a board with strong mātauranga-led directors who are able to go back to tikanga and our relationship with Papatūānuku. That can take us to a different place.”

The draft strategy proposes measuring and tracking the progress of some 30 kaupapa taiao in an initial five-year workplan.

It is not a quick-fix, shortterm approach but a major, intergenerational piece of work that will bring long-term financial and cultural rewards, Tina says.

“It is much more expensive to be a good kaitiaki than it is to be a good farmer. Some of the proposed workstreams will be expensive, such as reducing herd size and changing feed crops. But over time these measures will bring benefits, and in the long term will reduce costs and avoid regulatory measures that the government looks certain to bring in.”