2024 Bay of Plenty Finalists: Murray & Cecilia Winters and Chris & Karly Deed of Mangorewa Farms – Dairy

Relationships, resilience and revitalisation provide the foundation for this successful Te Ranga dairy farm that has been owned by the Winters family since 1992. 
 
Current owners Murray and Cecilia Winters have owned it since 2019 after working their way up through sharemilking. Today, they operate the 140ha dairy farm in partnership with sharemilkers Chris and Karly Deed, running up to 350 cows.  
 
Cecilia puts their success partly down to the successful working relationship between the partners – based on shared values and a family-focused philosophy.  
 
Resilience is another key trait that has guided their journey as they strive to increase production while reducing environmental impacts such as emissions, soil damage and the leaching of nutrient and sediment. 
 
In recent years, Cecilia and Murray have started planting native trees on the property and retiring steep terrain. The judges were impressed with the revitalisation of the farm’s biodiversity, plus the couple’s pest control work both at home and in the wider community. The property has become a haven for native birds including kōkako and kiwi, plus boasts a high number of sightings of the threatened pekapeka (long-tailed bat). 
 
The couple have optimised their farming system to suit the area, based on years of knowledge about the local climate. This is strengthened by good cropping practices such as direct drilling, one–pass tillage, using contingency paddocks in bad weather and careful paddock selection to rotate and improve pastures. 
 
The beautiful natural setting, easy contour and native bush bordering the south of the property mean this dairy farm is more than a business for Cecilia and Murray. They genuinely love living on the property and describe it as a wonderful place to raise a family. As they start to think about retirement and succession planning, they can’t imagine a better place to live.