Newspapers and journals

From the early days of European settlement, newspapers covered farming news. Journals informed farmers about animal, land and machinery sales, and tasks to be done on the farm. Farming families in isolated places relied on these papers for news.

Websites

Today, farmers can get information from the internet. There are many New Zealand websites about farming.

Radio

Radio broadcasts began in New Zealand in the 1920s. They soon became popular, helping farmers feel less isolated. City people also often listened to the programmes. William Goodfellow, founder of the New Zealand Cooperative Dairy Company, helped set up a national radio network.

At first, mainly music was broadcast – then news, weather forecasts and special farming shows began. From the 1930s, there were programmes for pupils of small country schools and Correspondence School pupils. After the Second World War more radio programmes were made for farmers, but these were cut in the late 1980s.

Television

Television began broadcasting in New Zealand in 1960. Like other media, it provided farmers with information and entertainment, and showed city people images of rural life. By the late 20th century, most New Zealanders lived in cities – but many still thought of the country as the ‘real’ New Zealand, and enjoyed watching programmes about it.

Country calendar was the first farming programme. It started in 1966, and was still going in 2022 – making it New Zealand’s longest-running TV show. It focused on personal farming stories, and sometimes played jokes on its audience.

Some drama programmes have been set in the country. In the 1970s, comedian John Clarke became famous as his character Fred Dagg, a farmer who wore a black singlet and gumboots and had a deadpan sense of humour.

Advertisements for products such as food and cars often appeal to New Zealanders’ fondness for country life.

In 19th-century Britain and Europe, wealthy people liked to go into the countryside and shoot game (wild animals such as deer, pigs and rabbits). They ate the meat, and displayed deer antlers as trophies.

When British settlers arrived in New Zealand, they found there were few animals suitable for hunting. So from the 1850s they shipped in deer and other animals, releasing them in the forests and the mountains.

Deer

New Zealand’s wild deer live in the bush, hills and mountains. The most common species is the red deer, which soon spread around the country. Other species include sika and fallow deer.

Other wild animals

Also hunted for sport were:

• tahr (related to wild goats)
• chamois (an antelope)
• pigs
• goats
• wallabies
• rabbits and hares.

Deerstalking

Stalking (hunting) deer was very popular in the 1920s, and rich Englishmen visited to capture large trophies. Hunters mostly used a .303 rifle.

Today hunters still head for the mountains in autumn, which is the time of ‘the roar’. This is the mating season, when many stags (male deer) have splendid antlers. The stags roar at each other and fight over the hinds (female deer). Hunters compete for the best antler trophies, using guns with telescopic sights.

Safety is vital, as sometimes hunters shoot each other by mistake, thinking they have seen a deer.

Too many deer

By the 1930s there were millions of deer, which were destroying native plants and trees and causing erosion. The government decided to reduce their numbers. Hunters known as deer cullers worked in remote areas, living in huts and shooting deer. By 1954 more than a million deer had been killed. Later, hunters shot them from helicopters – sometimes 300 deer a day. Government deer culling stopped in the 1980s, but recreational hunters help keep the numbers down.

Pig hunting

Wild pigs were hunted by Māori and Europeans, and today there are at least 25,000 pig hunters in New Zealand. It can be a dangerous sport. If a wild boar (male pig) is injured or angry it can attack and cause serious harm with its tusks. Hunters use dogs to find and hold a pig, and a rifle to shoot it or a knife to ‘stick’ it in the neck to kill it.

Māori and land ownership

Traditional Māori society had complex ideas about rights over land. Hapū (sub-tribes) and whānau (extended families) could have rights to use the same piece of land for different purposes. For example, one group might be allowed to fish in the stream, while another could grow food on the land nearby.

European settlers thought that once they bought Māori land, no one else had the right to use it. When Māori realised that, they began to question the sales. After the Treaty of Waitangi was signed in 1840, land commissions were set up to investigate earlier land sales. But much Māori land was either sold, or confiscated in the New Zealand wars of the 1860s.

European settlement

Many European settlers who came to New Zealand wanted to own their own land. In the North Island there were mainly small farms, and in the South Island there were sheep farms that covered large areas of land.

To help settlers get land for farms, the government bought land, often from Māori, to sell, lease or grant to the settlers.

Farm sizes

In the 1890s the government bought and broke up many of the biggest farms to create smaller family farms. In the 1940s and 1950s small farms were combined to make medium-sized family farms. During the 1990s, farms were joined up to make bigger farms, which were more efficient to run.

In the past people mainly farmed sheep and dairy cows, but now farmers have branched out into deer, goats, horticulture and forestry. Lifestyle blocks have also become common.

The importance of land

In recent years, Māori tribes have bought back land or had it returned as part of Treaty of Waitangi settlements.

Many people have been concerned about people from overseas owning New Zealand land, particularly in the high country of the South Island. There have also been concerns that high-paying tourists will have access to land, which will be closed off to ‘ordinary’ New Zealanders.