Craigmore’s Te Awa dairy farm at Te Pirita in Canterbury.
Craigmore’s Te Awa dairy farm at Te Pirita in Canterbury.
Rural investment company Craigmore Sustainables says it now has total assets of more than $1 billion after a year of steady driving to become a leader in sustainable food and fibre production.
Craigmore now manages 60 properties across the country and claims to be New Zealand’s largest diversified rural investmentcompany.
Horticulture is 37 per cent of its portfolio, farming is 36 per cent and 27 per cent is in forestry.
Close to 26,000 hectares, including leases and forestry right areas, are under the company’s direct management, said chief executive Che Charteris.
“This year we have planted 1.36 million forestry trees, 860,000 apple trees, 140,000 kiwifruit vines and 491,000 grapevines,” he said.
Founded in 2009, Craigmore Sustainables is 75 per cent owned by New Zealanders and 25 per cent owned by offshore shareholders, Charteris said. The directors of the management company are Charteris and Forbes Elworthy of London.
Farming is Craigmore’s most mature business. It manages 22 dairy milking platforms and one dairy support grazing farm in the South Island, producing 79m litres of milk a year.
Along with majority-owned properties, it has five minority interest investments in dairy farming businesses that make up an additional 8216ha, producing 90m litres of milk a year.
Its horticulture business is continuing a strong growth phase, building a portfolio of assets in kiwifruit, apples and grapes, Charteris said.
Craigmore Sustainables chief executive Che Charteris.
The company now had 229 direct employees and employed seasonal workers and contractors.
The company’s 2023 sustainability impact report said it pursued productivity and sustainability gains by improving everyday production systems.
Its goal is to achieve an independently verified and commercially viable net-zero emissions dairy farm by 2035. It had invested in developing methane treatment that had the potential to eliminate up to 90 per cent of methane emissions from cows. It had also installed a first-of-its-kind treatment that all but eliminated methane emissions from cattle effluent ponds, the report said.
To date, Craigmore had placed 2816ha of native forest under some form of legal or physical protection.
It had enhanced these areas with 202ha of native planting and protected a range of waterways throughout its properties.
Results from this year’s biodiversity programme included a large increase in kiwi sightings at the Wiroa kiwifruit orchard in Northland, and critically threatened endemic mudfish have been seen in a restored waterway on the Somerset dairy farm in Canterbury.
Andrea Fox joined the Herald as a senior business journalist in 2018 and specialises in writing about the dairy industry, agribusiness, exporting and the logistics sector and supply chains.
