Crafar's broke

Allan Crafar eats possums and scrapes a living. Photo / Christine Cornege

The man who once ran the largest family farming empire in the country is now hunting possums and scrounging fallen fruit to survive.

Allan Crafar says he and his wife Beth are "living off the land" after having trouble getting welfare benefits since the collapse of his 16 farms under $240 million of debt in 2009.

"We try to grow a bit of stuff if we can. We've eaten a few old rams. They taste all right if you cook them slow.

"If you sneak up on them on a good day, you'll get him tender. If you shoot him in the back of the head when he's not looking, he doesn't know he's a ram any more.

"I'm running out of rams - look out who else I might want to eat."

Crafar has now been moved off the land as receiver KordaMentha waits on a decision by the Overseas Investment Office on a bid by a Chinese company for the farms.

KordaMentha has also spoken to merchant banker Sir Michael Fay about a New Zealand-based bid of $105m for nine of the farms.

Crafar said possums and rabbits had also gone in the cookpot, along with "charity" from those in the area.

"We've always been pretty tight with money so it's not new to us."

He said possums were potential money earners as well as food. "The fur is worth a bit."

Crafer said he and his wife had also grown vegetables and were given food. "Anything that is going to waste and being fed to cows around the district gets given to us.

"I'm right off the grid, basically. It's hard to believe it can happen in New Zealand society but it has happened to us.

"I certainly haven't had any bloody social welfare. Three trips to town - it costs $100 to go to town and back - and we got nowhere." Crafar said the couple were considering leaving the South Waikato area but did not know what else to do.

"It's a terrible situation for one of the most productive families in New Zealand. But that's the way productive people in New Zealand are treated nowadays - like lepers. You do the most unexpected thing at the most unexpected time and that seems to work."

He said the fees charged by the receiver - about $5 million in two years - were higher than he believed they should be. "They'll be eating lamb," he said.

His brother Frank Crafar said the family had become "refugees in our own country".

He said he had turned to foodbanks, help from the Lions Club and church groups. Food was supplemented by pigs, possums and rabbits, with apples, quinces and walnuts harvested from the ground.

Possums were "all right", he said. "They only eat the best."

KordaMentha receiver Michael Stiassny said the Chinese-based bid was still considered the only bid officially on the table for the farms.

He said there had been ongoing contact with Sir Michael although the original bid had been rejected.