The Fouhy family settled Marima in 1892 and Brent shares the same great-grandparents as last year's winner Shaun Fouhy. Know Estate (520ha) was leased in February 2014.
Know Estate is a family legacy property that was previously leased out prior to Brent taking over in 2014.
This farm has been in the family since it was cleared and settled in 1888. The family went through some exceptionally tough times and in the Depression the farm was temporarily abandoned and the family moved to town to look for work.
An opportunity to grow the business arose in 2016 and Waipuke Farm at Tiraumea was leased from R. Richardson for three years. This was a 520ha block at Tiraumea, running sheep, beef and deer.
The farm was well set up, 20 per cent flat/easy and 75 per cent stock finished with the rest sold store. As this was only a three-year lease, the sheep and deer were bailed to reduce the short-term risk. The cattle were purchased from the farm owner.
The Simpson family (Ben, Jeanie, Allie and Nicholas) joined the business in 2016 when Ben was employed as the stock manager at Knox Estate.
Rachael grew up on a sheep farm in Southland and graduated from Massey in 2005. After 18 months working in Dannevirke, she accepted a job at Tararua Vet Services in Pahiatua and has continued to work there.
Rachael met Brent while studying at Massey, as she was in a rugby team with his sister. In 2013 she was offered an opportunity to buy into the vet business and via mergers and acquisitions this has grown to be a shareholding in Totally Vets.
Totally Vets consists of seven vet clinics in the lower North Island and the Tararua Breeding Centre. Rachael is currently working three days a week as a senior vet in the Pahiatua Clinic with a special interest in sheep and beef production systems. She also sits on the company's board of directors.
After completing two years at Smedley, Brent went to Massey and completed a Dip. Ag. He worked on farms in the Wairarapa, followed by a stint in South Otago before heading overseas before returning to Pahiatua to lease the family farm.
Around 2012, he completed the Generate Programme as he knew that the next step in growing the farming business would involve employing staff and this was an area he had little experience with.
As part of the course work for this programme, he interviewed neighbours, the Arbuthnotts, who had grown their dairy business over time. These conversations eventually led to the opportunity to lease Knox Estate.
Brent and Rachael have two children, Charlotte, 10, and Amelia, 7, both very keen on farming.
Brent and Ben first met at Smedley Station, where they were both farm cadets during the 90s. Ben went on to work on large-scale properties in the central North Island.
Their paths crossed again around 2014 when Ben moved to the area and they met at a local dog trials meeting. When Ben became the stock manager at Knox Estate in 2016, he saw this job as an opportunity to grow his skills and transition from purely a stock role to learning more about stock, pasture, and farm management.
FS Farms was set up as an equity partnership between Brent and Rachael Fouhy and Ben and Jeanie Simpson in September 2018. Jeanie was bought out by Ben in 2020.
The partnership leases both farms and owns all the stock and plant across both properties, and the two farms are run as one business. Both families like to include their kids in the farming business as much as possible.
They also actively encourage their kids to take part in a range of activities that interest them, of which they are also involved as volunteers. This includes ballet, rugby, hockey, ponies, swimming, cricket, and hunting.
They all have strong shared values around growth and development and as a result, Ben has completed a Dip. in Farm Management and Rachael has completed the AWDTs Escalator Programme.
