Rowley family retired but still close to the soil on Teviot Station

John and Joan Rowley are still busy with Mrs Rowley's peony growing and export business.

Retired farmer and Teviot community mover and shaker, John Rowley, of Teviot, has on his birth certificate ''John Cotton Farmer Rowley'', and so does his father, grandfather, his son and grandson.

The name links the generations and the history of the family together.

''I am the third, my son is the fourth and the grandson is the fifth [to have that name],'' Mr Rowley said.

The Rowley family has been farming since the first John arrived in the 1850s.

''My family originally came to New Zealand when Thomas Rowley arrived in 1853 in Canterbury,'' he said.

After his brother, John Cotton Rowley, joined him, he and wife Mary Rose, went on to become farmers, buying and selling property in North Otago, Maniototo and Southland.

Subsequent generations, all John Cotton Rowleys, with the later addition of ''Farmer'' as recognition of another branch of the family, farmed at Lake Hawea and then Disputed Spur - where the present John was born in 1943 - and Rosslyn Station, in the Teviot Valley.

By age 22, Mr Rowley was in partnership with his father at Rosslyn, farming Corriedales, and later with his wife Joan, whom he met at a debutante ball in Roxburgh in 1965.

About that time, the agricultural sector was in a sorry state after two world wars, the 1930s Depression, and the Government's freeze on funds after the big wool prices in the 1950s.

That situation lasted until the 1960s, limiting on-farm development and progress, but when the Government offered farmers loans, Mr Rowley borrowed money for fencing, cultivation, upgrading a wool shed and a stock water scheme.

The farm became more profitable but, at the same time, the Corriedales had footrot and parasite issues.

Following drench and selenium trials by scientist Jim Bruce-Smith, they solved the parasite issue and sorted the footrot by changing from Corriedales to Perendales.

Their lambing percentage rose from 107% to 143%, improving their cash flow significantly.

''They were great years for farming and it made a positive contribution to the New Zealand economy.

''Then Muldoon skittled that, because once the Government started subsidising farmers' production, [1985 to 1992] the economy was in trouble.''

He and Joan have three children including another John Cotton Farmer Rowley and Antony and Rachel.

The couple eventually owned three farms, including Timmaburn and Mt Teviot stations and a fattening unit in West Otago.

Mrs Rowley was ''stud master'' on the farm, which meant she did the lambing beat as well as the school run.

Now retired, they now live on the Teviot Station homestead block and lease the rest out.

In addition to farming, Mr Rowley spent 25 years on the Otago Federated Farmers executive and, in the 1970s and 1980s, campaigned for a law change allowing pastoral leases to be freeholded.

It was a huge amount of work to freehold their property and cost them $250,000 to do so.

''One generation had to bite the bullet to freehold the land for subsequent generations - someone had to do it.''

He was also on the Central Otago District Council from 1989 to 1999 and the Teviot Valley Community Board until 2002.

He is chairman of both the Teviot Prospects and the Teviot Valley Heritage Society Inc.

He is also involved with Mrs Rowley's peony growing and export business, JOANZ, which she established in 1997.

yvonne.ohara@alliedpress.co.nz