FARMHOUSE: Fran Loader designed a sustainable house on eco principles for Helen (Hel) Loader and Scott Wilson on the Nuts 'n May property. Photo/Bevan Conley
Adding nut-fed pigs and better marketing to a Rangitatau East walnut orchard will make it a business not a hobby, Hel Loader says.
She's the daughter of Walter and Diana Loader, who bought the 15.6ha property in 1987.
It had been part of a sheep and beef farm. The Loaders put in hedgerows and planted hundreds of fruit and nut trees.
Walnuts became the dominant crop, and the property was called Nuts 'n May. There were 1000 walnut trees established - most still young - when daughter Hel and her partner, Scott Wilson, bought it two years ago.
Walter and Diana weren't making a living wage from the place, but Ms Loader intends to.
"It's a business for us, not just a hobby," Hel Loader said.
Her daughter, architect Fran Loader, designed the new owners a house on the orchard. They moved in at Christmas, and have been making some changes.
The pig idea came from their experiences walking the Way of St James/El Camino de Santiago, a long pilgrim walking trail in France and Spain. Walking northern Spain in autumn they watched old people picking up nuts in the forest and pigs foraging on acorns.
Ms Loader is vegetarian, but Mr Wilson eats meat, and feeding pigs on reject walnuts appealed to him.
Since taking over, the new owners have removed 170 trees - some that were getting too big, figs that weren't fruiting, macadamias that are hard to sell because they are hard to crack, and other experiments.
They've also invested in fencing, so the orchard can be grazed by sheep in winter, rather than mown.
Other fences will confine the pigs, and they have built shelters for them.
The first pig breed they are using is an old English one called Berkshire. The pigs have plenty of fat and their meat is good for making bacon and pancetta. Mr Wilson has installed a smoker.
They have one power-mad Berkshire boar, called Napoleon, and four breeding sows.
They intend to add some Tamworth to the genetics. The result will be half-and-half spotted piglets, called plum puddings, that will be better eating.
About 20 free-range pigs already eat the reject walnuts, which are at least a third of the crop. They also forage for any nuts left behind after the harvest. They eat grass the rest of the time and also adore feijoas and other orchard waste.
Ms Loader said the pigs were slaughtered on demand, often in early winter after cleaning up waste from the nut harvest. They were usually destined for "nose-to-tail" eating.
"We have orders from Wellington restaurants who want to buy free-range, nut-fed pigs, because the meat does taste far different and superior."
It could be tough for a vegetarian raising pigs for slaughter. Ms Loader gets friendly with the breeders and not with the pigs destined to be killed. But she's not crying over them.
"This is a farm, not a hobby, and they have a fantastic life running around in a nut orchard."
On the marketing front, she's moved away from selling some of the crop to Cracker of a Nut in Canterbury. She said by the time freight was paid a kilogram of nuts was clearing only 80 cents.
Instead she's been selling dried and hand-graded premium nuts in bulk for $8 to $10 a kg to people who either use them themselves or resell them at markets in Auckland.
She said Wanganui wasn't a good place to sell.
"Wanganui is blessed with a lot of large walnut trees, so there's no local market."
The new owners are also thinking of buying a commercial machine to crack sound walnuts that are rejected because of their small size. After that the kernels could either be sold as is, or crushed to make either walnut oil or a paste used to manufacture crackers and biscuits.
The oil was new to New Zealand and there was not much demand for it, so the paste or kernels may be better sellers.
They're planning to stick with hand harvesting and grading for now, but may invest in better equipment for washing and drying the nuts.
This year's crop is about three tonnes - down on last year - and demand has already outstripped supply. The orchard is producing 4 to 6 tonnes of nuts in a good year. In 20 years' time, if all goes well, it will be producing 20 tonnes of nuts.
With that volume in mind, the new owners have to think about whether to stick with hand harvesting and employ people seasonally, or go to mechanical harvesting. The answer will be whichever is better for both nut quality and cost.
New Zealand doesn't have a strong culture of eating walnuts. Many sales are to older people or to people from overseas - places like Yugoslavia, Georgia and Asia. Export to Europe or China is an option for future large crops, Ms Loader said.
"We are casting around for ways to add value. We've done the high-end premium in-shell trade so far, and the pigs. We've got the luxury of two years to sort the rest out."
She and Mr Wilson have put the property into a family trust, to protect it as an orchard and give the three children they share a mechanism to manage it.
Both began their working lives in the union movement. He stayed there, but she "sold her soul" and went to the industry side, working for big brewing companies and travelling in south-east Asia.
The move to Wanganui is her second attempt at retirement.