about the farm’s history and development, imparting his dairying knowledge and talking about the Kiwi way of life. For the past three years they have hosted month-long bus tours to China run by C R McPhail Tours. It has given them a good understanding of the Chinese market and their Chinese visitors’ lifestyle. “We get many Chinese visitors and plenty of locals, too. Tours are a good way of getting the rural message out to people who don’t always have access to it. When they leave they’re fascinated and quite surprised about what goes into running a farm.” He customises each tour to their guests’ level of understanding, language and whether they have children with them. A recent visit from an English agricultural university professor led to many in-depth conversations about their farming operation. “For families with young children it might be as simple as this black and white cow is a Friesian,” Grant says. “Last year we had a group of French rural professionals visit. We sat under the elm tree for two hours before the tour because they asked a lot of questions. They were fascinated with our milk price system and co-operative structure.” Karo runs the bed and breakfast and enjoys spoiling her guests with home-made smoothies, muffins, honey and muesli. Succulent farm lamb roasted in rosemary, traditional pavlova topped with berries and lemon curd cream or a barbecue with farm-bred, marinated steak are also on the menu. She often puts on a large buffet for the farm tour visitors under a large elm tree in the picture-perfect rustic setting. And she uses fresh produce from her large vegetable garden and says their guests love seeing where their food has come from. “Our guests live and eat with us in the house. We have some great discussions in the kitchen on all manner of farming related topics as I prepare breakfast,” Karo says. Guests are given a one-hour farm tour whereas others might spend longer on the farm looking at cows being milked or feeding sheep and chickens. “We put a stock crate on the truck to take our visitors across the farm. Heading off across the pasture on the back of a truck is often a new and really exciting experience for them,” Grant says. “We milk all year round so there’s a good chance that there’ll be some young calves around. Our visitors love to feed them and have the calves suck their fingers. All things that we take for granted.” Grant often takes a jug of milk from the farm for the tour visitors to try during their breakfast and says sampling food grown on the farm is indeed a fascinating highlight for guests. Visitors not only enjoy seeing the farm and animals, they are fascinated by the technology such as the scout collars that detect when a cow is on heat and any animal health problems, like a Fitbit. “A couple of Auckland lawyers stayed with us and were astounded at the farm’s technology and sophisticated level of operation,” Grant says. They are firm believers in the age-old premise of farmers leaving the land in a better state than when they took it on and say dairy farmers are often portrayed as destroying the environment. Over the years they have done a lot of environmental work including planting 10,500 native plants in riparian plantings. “We’ve tested the water coming on and off the farm and
DAIRY FARMER
December 2019
Grant Wills and Karo Preston run Tremeer Farm Stay in Waikato which allows visitors to stay on a working farm and experience rural life.
have shown that it leaves the farm in a better state than when it arrives. Stories like that surprise our visitors because it contradicts what they hear in the media,” Grant says. “We’ve noticed that Kiwi visitors arrive here with a less open mind than foreign visitors because they’ve been fed a line about how bad dairying is to the environment. We’re determined to demonstrate that it isn’t the case.” Karo says their Kiwi visitors are astounded to see what actually happens on a dairy farm and it changes their entire perception whereas foreign visitors seem to think NZ dairy farmers are wonderful and they just want to see and be a part of it. “It a huge eye-opener for our local visitors. They come here already assuming what they’re going to see but it ends up being nothing like the media has portrayed,” Karo says. “We’d love to have many more Auckland visitors so we can share our story.” As a working dairy farm they have to be mindful of biosecurity and take measures to stop any biosecurity risks arriving with their visitors and travelling onto the next farms too. The business has given them an appreciation for the things they once might have taken for granted. “It makes us appreciate what we’ve got. Like most farmers we always want to be better and are always thinking ahead. Having people here makes you stop, draw a line in the sand and reflect on how far we’ve come,” Grant says. “We’re not making a killing out of that side of the business but it’s very rewarding. We feel as though we are making a difference to the people that visit,” Karo says. “The greatest value we get is telling our story to our visitors and hopefully those people will influence others.” n
53