Albert Straus, Founder/CEO Straus Family Creamery & organic dairy farmer

We’re losing farmers because they aren’t being paid the true cost of producing the food. We do things differently because we’re trying to rebuild our communities and pass on dairy farms to the next generation.

Our shy places quietly bringing about change
02.02.20

Our shy places quietly bringing about change

Almost exactly a year ago I was handed an original paperback called Wetlands: Discovering New Zealand’s Shy Places. It was originally published in 1986 and its pages had been well-thumbed but well cared for. I hadn’t heard of its author and when I did more research, I realised I knew about him through his enduring work. G.K. Stephenson or Dr Gordon Stephenson was a farmer and conservationist. He and his family farmed near Putaruru in South Waikato in the sixties […]
Environmental Sustainability, Farm, Social Sustainability
The Farmer’s Daughter
29.01.19

The Farmer’s Daughter

Published in Stone Soup Vol. Seven, Land/Whenua.  I’m Gina. I’m thirty-three years old and the fourth generation to tend our farm on the lower foothills of Maungatautari, in the Waipā District. From my great-grandfather Jack and his brother Ted, and on to the current custodians, my parents, Neville and Louise, our family has worked the land for almost a century. Having recently come home to the farm after over a decade away, I’ve become curious about unpacking the role and representation of women […]
Dairy, Farm
Our summer 2018 honey campaign poster
22.10.18

Our summer 2018 honey campaign poster

Our bees can collect from any number of flower sources in the diverse, organic pasture, the wetland and elsewhere in the Horahora and Maungatautari districts. So, every year the honey is slightly different, based on what plants our bees decide to visit. We wanted to capture this by creating a different poster every year, to commemorate that year’s harvest. In this first year, Plant Girl did an amazing job of capturing ‘honey every day, not everyday honey’, by taking her Olympus and 35mm […]
Apiary, Food, Pasture
A finalist in ‘good food’
09.10.18

A finalist in ‘good food’

We were announced on 31 August as a finalist in the 2018 NZI Sustainable Business Network Awards. The farm is one of nine finalists in the ‘transforming food’ category (or ‘good food’) and only the second dairy farm to be recognised. “We couldn’t be more excited and proud to be selected alongside amazing New Zealand businesses we admire and respect”, says Louise. The news came in the same week as we opened our farm shop, selling produce and honey directly […]
Economic Sustainability, Environmental Sustainability, Farm, Social Sustainability
Jonathan Gold, Pulitzer Prize-winning food critic

In a lot of ways I think food is starting to take the place in culture that rock and roll took 30 years ago.

Organic opportunities: growing demand attracts supply
11.07.18

Organic opportunities: growing demand attracts supply

Published in the New Zealand Dairy Exporter magazine, July 2018.  During the last week of June, the deputy editor Sheryl Brown came out to the farm for lunch and a discussion, with a focus around organic dairy. Off the back of The 2018 OANZ Organic Market Report, we are seeing a renewed interest in organics in the sector and we only hope this conversation continues to gather momentum. While we wait for our issue in the post, here is a PDF […]
Farm, Organic
Gro Harlem Brundtland, former Prime Minister of Norway

Sustainable development is that which meets the needs of the present, without compromising on the ability for future generations to meet their own needs.

The power of three: or how three weirs are better than one
02.07.18

The power of three: or how three weirs are better than one

Taking even the most cursory look through the pages of history, science, art, philosophy, religion, sport and mathematics, there’s no denying that three is a powerful number. After seeing firsthand how well two weirs worked to filter the water leaving the farm, we set about creating a third – marking a final chapter (for now) in our Southern Catchment Treatment work. Back in January of 2017 we created our first two weirs, by moving the earth right by the exit of one […]
Economic Sustainability, Environmental Sustainability, Farm
Niamh Peren on taking pragmatism to Parliament
26.06.18

Niamh Peren on taking pragmatism to Parliament

Filmmaker and photographer Niamh Peren is 29 years old. Her tūrangawaewae is the south-west of the South Island, and she grew up around open spaces and lots of sheep. Her favourite bird is the almost mythical New Zealand pigeon, the kererū. When I spoke to her, she was about to drive down to see her grandmother in the Bay of Plenty after completing a series of interviews in Auckland. She isn’t running for office and doesn’t particularly want to be famous. […]
Environmental Sustainability, Interview
Barack Obama, 44th President of the United States

It’s not a choice between our environment and our economy; it’s a choice between prosperity and decline.

Bees over ‘beefies’
10.03.18

Bees over ‘beefies’

In late August of 2016, Richard and I bought some bees. At the beginning of the month I had gone on a cyclonic trip through the ins and outs of working with a hive. Called The Practical Beekeeping Course, it was a two-day immersive education in working a hive. When I got home each day around 8 pm, Richard and I would go over the notes, read some more and Google anything we had contradictory information on. Which, incidentally was […]
Apiary, Economic Sustainability, Environmental Sustainability, Farm
Māori proverb

Manaaki whenua, manaaki tangata, haere whakamua. Care for the land, care for the people, go forward.

Proverb

The best time to plant a tree is twenty years ago. The second best time is now.

Salt licks and seaweed and blackstrap molasses
Salt licks and seaweed and blackstrap molasses
08.02.18

Salt licks and seaweed and blackstrap molasses

Every day of the year our cows dine on a continuous buffet of organic salad. When the Waikato has had just the right amounts of rain and sunlight, these leaves are silky, dark green and sturdy. Over many years, Mum and Dad have developed an organic polyculture pasture that’s suited to our land. It’s constantly changing and is mainly made up of chicory, grasses, white and red clover, yarrow, lucerne and plantain. This diverse pasture benefits cow health and milk production, while also […]
Dairy, Farm, Organic
Andy Warhol, artist, director and producer

I think having land and not ruining it is the most beautiful art that anybody could ever want to own.

The Minister of Conservation on choosing mosaic over monoculture
01.02.18

The Minister of Conservation on choosing mosaic over monoculture

For 21 years, World Wetlands Day has been celebrated on 2 February. It was born out of the 1971 adoption of the Convention on Wetlands, known as the Ramsar Convention, which is a global treaty for the conservation and sustainable use of wetlands. In her maiden speech to Parliament in February of 2012, Green MP Eugenie Sage opened with an acknowledgment of ‘the rivers, streams, lakes, wetlands and aquifers throughout Aotearoa for all the life they sustain. Without clean and […]
Economic Sustainability, Environmental Sustainability, Farm, Interview, Social Sustainability
Love Song for a Vampire
20.01.18

Love Song for a Vampire

Richard loves to cook. Every Sunday night (even if we’ve got back to Auckland from the farm an hour before midnight) he’s plundering the freezer, thumbing through recipe books and notes, deciding what to cook for the week. Cooking is an experiment, something to relentlessly improve on, to satisfy creative itches and his greedy, daily diner. My workmates like to gently taunt me with my ‘leftovers lunchbox’ every day, as it’s always much better than their ho-hum sandwiches or packet […]
Farm, Garden, Organic
Dame Carol Ann Duffy, poet, playwright and professor

For this,
let gardens grow, where beelines end,
sighing in roses, saffron blooms, buddleia;
where bees pray on their knees, sing, praise
in pear trees, plum trees; bees
are the batteries of orchards, gardens, guard them.

On a dry day in spring
On a dry day in spring
15.01.18

On a dry day in spring

During Conservation Week in October, Horahora School teachers, children and parents came back to the farm for a morning to lend a helping hand with our weir planting. Armed with spades and gumboots, they learned about why we created two large pools of water on the farm and how the digger created the new area. Cabbage tree, kowhai, kahikatea and grasses were among the plants that were gingerly placed in the ground. The kids split up into smaller groups of two to three, and used […]
Environmental Sustainability, Farm, Social Sustainability
David Chang, chef and owner of Momofuku restaurant group

Cooking and gardening involve so many disciplines: math, chemistry, reading, history.

How a buried stream became a well-formed sieve
How a buried stream became a well-formed sieve
25.09.17

How a buried stream became a well-formed sieve

The southern catchment spans around a third of our farm’s total area and discharges into an extensive gully wetland, eventually flowing into the Whangaipeteki Stream. The water then goes on a 2.6 km serpentine journey to the Waikato River. As on many farms in New Zealand, for a few decades the water had been channelled into a drain system, to make the most of pastureland and to reduce ‘bogging’, or ‘pugging’ by stock. However, the early weeks of the New […]
Environmental Sustainability, Farm, Social Sustainability
René Redzepi, chef and co-owner of Noma

Learning about issues such as sustainability and locavorism are things that you need to have as part of you as a chef, because it will make you cook more delicious food.

The question is wai
22.07.17

The question is wai

Published in Cuisine Magazine (issue 183) in July, 2017.  We were lucky to be featured in Aaron McLean’s strong piece intensified farming, vs exploring alternatives in New Zealand. It’s a great read and part of a much larger debate that’s starting to bubble up to the surface. We’re thankful to Cuisine for backing these more thought-provoking takes on our local food system. If you don’t have razor-sharp eyesight, press the zoom on your browser window to read. Or, grab yourself […]
Apiary, Dairy, Economic Sustainability, Environmental Sustainability, Farming, Organic, Pasture, Social Sustainability
Dame Jane Goodall, primatologist, ethologist, anthropologist and UN Messenger of Peace

The greatest danger to our future is apathy.