Our History

Abe and Anita started farming in 1981 on a 26 hectare farm on the outskirts of Meppel, a city in the north of the Netherlands. Parts of the farm had been in the de Wolde family since 1491, but it became apparent that the farm would be taken up by city expansion. This triggered the decision to emigrate in 1990.

After a short orientation trip it was decided that New Zealand was the country of choice and on 30 April 1991 Abe, Anita, Lisanne and Wesley arrived in Christchurch. Lisanne was nearly two years old and Wes was about three months. All that was arranged was camper-van rental, no house, no job. While traveling around the decision was made to settle in Canterbury.

The first 18 months was spent working for wages on a dairy farm near Ashburton and learning how to farm the “Kiwi way”. After a short trip south a farm was purchased on Hundred Line road north of Winton and was converted in time for the 1992 milking season against expert advice. We decided that “when sheep do well cows should be okay too”.

This was one of the very first dairy conversions in the wider area and the local dairy industry was still in a very experimental stage. No one really knew how to convert a farm, what stocking rate to go for, what size water lines to put in, how to construct the dairy lanes or what pasture production to expect.

Luckily we survived all that and expanded over the years into our current size. In 2005 the first free stall barn was built to enhance environmental sustainability, and after we realised the full extent of the benefits another two sheds were built. We expect to do this for all our farms in the future.

Currently we are pursuing improvements in the efficiency of feed conversion and this has implications for nearly all areas of the way we farm. We are passionate to improve farming systems so that we can produce more food for an increasingly hungry world while improving our sustainability.