Marton farmer at loss - asks for help

Rangitikei farmer Andrew Galpin is looking for advice. Wanganui Chronicle Photograph by Bevan Conley.

It sounds like a hard luck story - bad seed, failed business ventures, a broken foot.

Marton man Andrew Galpin is frustrated and at his wit's end.

"Everywhere I go they seem to just cut me down and I can't sort of get my voice out," he said.

He has 70ha left from the family farm in Galpins Rd, north of Marton. It's 335m above sea level with views of Ruapehu and Taranaki.

He's on his own and living in the house he was brought up in - a large, cold 1904 villa. There's another cottage on the farm, which is rented out.

He's tried a few money making ventures - a timber milling and winch felling business using a Mahoe mill. He advertised and has sold "bits and pieces".

Then he used some of the macrocarpa he milled to build removable cottages with chainsaw-sculpted furniture. He's also renovating and extending a shed to turn it into a small bunk room.

There are a total of eight beds in small buildings clustered around his house, and a few people have used them and paid a donation.

"I could sell the transportable cottages, or would it be better to keep them and use them for accommodation? I haven't really got it up and running properly."

Some of the visitors came to use his 1km motocross track. He's a keen motocross and cross country rider, with medals from the Masters' Games. Riders can use his track for a $10 donation.

He's also got 300 ewes on the land, and is leasing out grazing for 30 cattle.

His hard luck list is extensive. He's had concussion and is quite severely dyslexic.

"I have a lot of trouble with different stuff," he said.

He said rye grass/clover seed that he bought to sow a flat paddock turned out to have weed seeds in it, and he's in a fight with the seller. In July he broke several bones in his foot and now gets around on crutches or in a wheelchair.

Photo / Bevan Conley.

He asked the Manawatū/Rangitikei Rural Family Support Trust for "some sound advice". Its chairwoman Margaret Millard said he has had several visits.

The trust got an agribusiness consultant to write a report for him on the farm's possibilities.

Mr Galpin said the report compared his insulated macrocarpa cottages with "secondhand treated pine things", which wound him up still further.

All the support trust's work is voluntary, Mrs Millard said, and everything provided is free to farmers.

"We try to help people help themselves. There are no rules, but there are limitations," she said.