Pauline and Chris Lethbridge may be walking away with nothing as their dairy farm is placed in receivership
Pauline and Chris Lethbridge may be walking away with nothing as their dairy farm is placed in receivership.
The dairy downturn is literally a sign of the times for Chris and Pauline Lethbridge.
First there’s the receivership banner plastered across a sale sign in front of their dairy farm at Hukerenui, 20 minutes north of Whangarei.
Then there’s a ‘Dairy Farmer Gone Broke Needs Work’ sign Chris stuck in the verge on State Highway 1 in Warkworth.
Chris Lethbridge is hopeful of picking up contracting work closer to Auckland.
It’s been over 20 years since Chris lived in the north Auckland area, having grown up on a 2.4 hectare Silverdale block.
Dairying became a career after he started working on a dairy farm in Kaukapakapa, about 50km north of Auckland.
But it hasn’t always been an easy life and now he wishes he’d never got into it.
Chasing the money sharemilking and working long hours in the Waikato cost him his marriage, he says.
He started again in the north sharemilking at Dargaville where he remarried and started a new family.
Together with Pauline, Chris then sharemilked in Kerikeri before the couple finally bought their dairy farm at Hukerenui nine years ago.
Now Chris has to be out by June 1, and he is considering rural contracting at Wellsford.
Ironically, his mother sold her house in Army Bay on the Whangaparaoa Peninsula at the beginning of the year to move closer, and has just bought a house in Kamo. His sister lives in Stanmore Bay.
“We have to be out by the first of June and we don’t know which direction we’ll be heading when we go out that gate,” he says.
Farming in the north has been a challenge, Chris says.
The big payouts three years ago only brought their finances back to level after years of challenging dry conditions, and the last milk payouts have been the nail in the coffin for their farm.
With the farm having dropped a third of its value in the last year, Chris is unsure if they will have anything in the bank.
“We’ve got nothing to go to and nothing to look forward to. You work hard and want to leave something for your children when you go, but that’s not looking likely now.”
After years working the farm, former flight attendant Pauline has just picked up a job with a chemist in Whangarei.
Chris’s children from his first marriage both work in the industry nearby.
As a milking contractor, son Jamie has a secure income, but Chris’ daughter Christie has been working on his farm and will also be out of work.
“This is a dairy area, with only about two beef farms,” Chris says. “There are 17 dairy farms for sale in a 30 kilometre radius around us.”
His children are reluctant to leave the area, but moving closer to Auckland is an option.
“Things seem a bit easier there,” Chris says.
Source: Stuff
