At the age of 28, Matt Ward has covered quite a bit of ground in his farming career – that’s literally thousands of kilometres underfoot, having spent most of it shepherding in the mountainous terrain of Central Otago.
In a week of mustering he’d cover over 50km of hill country, but has recently found his feet planted firmly on the flat terrain of his ancestral land in Edendale, Southland.
Ward now runs his 220 hectare family sheep farm deep in the south, but he’s taken the long route to get there, and purposely so.
In 2003, when Ward was just seven years old, his father David Ward was diagnosed with bowel cancer and six months later the family lost him.
With no guarantee that neither he nor his twin siblings, Emma and Jason, would pursue an ag career, the farm was put under management.
“Mum kept the whole thing going so we could have the chance to come home; I’m third generation.
“I have never thought about doing anything else or being anything else, it is just something I have always wanted to do.”
At age 10 he moved to Mosgiel near Dunedin and eventually attended Otago Boys’ High School. After leaving school he had the opportunity to further his studies at university, but headed back south to work on his uncle’s farm right next door to his dad’s.
A decade ago, Ward could’ve easily stepped into the farm manager role but firmly believes that you should earn your keep.
“You are progressing the whole way, and I reckon that is key. You’ve got to start at the bottom to work your way up, because if you are starting at the top, you don’t know how far it is to fall.”
He headed upcountry to a place he had never heard of, Ranfurly, to shepherd 6000 ewes at Glenspec Station on the Danseys Pass.
“I remember going for my interview. I got to Alexandra and I hit the roundabout, and instead of turning left to go to Central I took a right and I didn’t even know there was a road that carried on that way. That’s how lost I was. I had no idea what I was doing.”
But he did know what he was doing. Within three years Ward worked his way into a managing role before moving on to West Wanaka Station, where he and the other shepherds looked after 25,000 stock units including cattle and deer.
As a small-town kid, Ward said, the isolation of the Maniototo never bothered him.
“I absolutely loved it, you just get used to it. I would enjoy it more than living in town.
“When I moved back down south I could have quite easily stayed and moved next door [onto his dad’s farm] and it could have all been quite easy, but I sort of wanted that challenge.”
He played for the Maniototo rugby team alongside former All Black hooker Andrew Hore who, for the record, is just as hard as he appears.
“It was a lot better to be playing with him than against him, that’s for sure. He is if anything harder, but he was bloody good to me, they looked after me.”
As most young farmers do, Ward grew up at lightning speed living and working among his colleagues. A few life lessons were made a lot quicker by living in close quarters at West Wanaka station.
“You are working with them all day and then going home to have dinner with them. It sorts you out as a person too you know, like you sort of have to do the job and get on with them. You have to put personalities aside, which is a big learning thing … because you obviously don‘t get along with everyone.”
Ward was soon shoulder tapped by the neighbours, Mount Aspiring Station, to manage up to 10,000 stock units including cattle, which was his dream job.
“You take it for granted. How many thousand tourists go up the road a year? And when you stop and talk to them, and they’ll go on about how lucky you are to live here.
“You know you are lucky, but it isn’t until you leave and go back up there and drive up that valley, and it’s like ‘Hell, I lived here’.”
He still returns every season for tailing, just to catch up with his shepherding mates and the station owners, Allison and Randall Aspinall.
“I like to give the dogs a good run, to keep your eye in more than anything.”
Ward has seven sheep dogs, all of which he’s trained, and a Jack Russell called Bella who has gone into retirement since moving onto flat land.
Living the dream of lakes, a warm climate and good mates in Wanaka, in 2022 Ward took the plunge to come south and became a family man, almost overnight.
He met his partner, Chantella Thurlow, in Wanaka and brought her down south to test the waters. They now have a one-year-old girl, Penelope.
“It was a quick old change, that was the biggest adaptation. I had opportunities, but I was able to come back and give it a red-hot crack.
“I have known I have always had the chance to come home, and when it does work out well, and you see how well you can do out of it and the lifestyle of it, why do anything else?”
Having been brought up in Edendale, the adjustment to small-town New Zealand has been a breeze.
He’s captaining the senior Edendale rugby team, knows his neighbours and has the occasional visit to the same chippie he went to at primary school. Nothing much has changed, he said.
“We lost our semi-final against Wyndham. Don’t put that in there, I am still gutted.
“I fizz off it. I enjoy going to the clubrooms and catching up with people. You get the same people there all the time, but I do really enjoy that.”
Through his hard work over the past two years, Ward recently won the Southern South Island Beef + Lamb New Zealand Young Farmer Development Scholarship.
Taking that in his stride, he said he’s not in the game to make a quick dollar, he’s in it for the long haul and to bring children up the same way he was raised.
“That is the big thing I remember in my childhood, being able to go out on the farm and be part of it.
“It’s not easy, but if it was easy and you were making a whole heap of money everyone would be trying to do it. You are not going to become a big rich Southland farmer overnight, you have to work away at it, like everyone before us has.”
What Ward enjoys most about farming his own stock and with no extra help is the tangible results he’s seeing in his 1600 ewes, 400 hoggets and 1000 lambs, plus 180 cattle for the added bonus.
“Everything that goes out the front gate you have put your time and effort into.
“To see fat lambs go out the gate and every year since I have been home they have got better. To watch your scanning results get better and your weaning weights go up … the results you can get from a bit of hard work.
“It is quite nice to sit back and look at the past 10 years and how far I have actually come … use it as a line in the sand and look forward to the next 10 years.”
Through his achievements, moves and lessons, the one obvious gain to Ward’s repertoire is the fact that the rolling R is back in full force. Edendale has brought out the best in him.
“Being brought up down here, I reckon is magic. You can’t beat it.”
More: The Farmers Weekly Rural Living series highlights the rich diversity of Aotearoa New Zealand’s rural communities, farming families and their contribution to the food and fibre sector.
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