New $3 million farm cadet training facility for Hawke’s Bay

Joan Fernie Charitable Trust chairman Mike Barnham says all farming starts with well-trained young people.

By RNZ

Millions of dollars are going into a new farm-based cadet training facility in Hawke’s Bay.

Moeangiangi is a 3600ha sheep and beef farm 40 minutes north of Napier.

It will take over from the Waipaoa Farm Cadet scheme, which operated for 17 years in the Gisborne district, but shut down this year after the sale of the station.

Moeangiangi is one of three farms run by the Joan Fernie Charitable Trust (JFCT), which was started in 1977 by Joan Fernie, who owned Chesterhope Station between Napier and Hastings, until her death at 91 in 2007.

Trust chairman Mike Barham said all farming started with well-trained young people, of who there was a shortage, so getting involved was an easy decision for the trust.

“I have a passion for training young guys,” he said.

“Our whole industry is so short of young farmers, so I took no talking into to have a look at the option.

“The Waipaoa board came down to Moeangiangi and fell in love with it as an ideal place for the cadet training farm.

“We now have a draft trust deed in front of us which is going to be signed off shortly.”

The easy part for Barham was saying “yes let’s do it”, the hard work started now and would take a lot of time, he said.

The work will include setting up the infrastructure of a training facility.

“We’re going to spend about $3,000,000 ... to have lovely new accommodation, a cook house, lecture theatre, all this sort of thing.”

The cadetship will be a two-year programme and the first intake of five will be from 2027, Barham said.

It will be a similar format to the former Waipaoa scheme and there would be no shortage of applicants with bigger farm training schemes like Smedley always being over-subscribed, he said.

“This operation will be different [from Smedley].

“This is smaller and more intimate, we’ll have a point of difference on the training of these young people based on a lower number.”

Barnham said information about the farm cadet course would be coming out soon to encourage young people to think about Moeangiangi as a training option and also to get potential funders or people in agriculture to hear more about the plan.

“You can’t sell a secret, so we need to start telling people more about it from now,” he said.

– RNZ