It is interesting to reflect over the past 20 years on the changing face of land use in Northland. When I first started vetting up here in 1983, we were a mixed practice, where sheep and beef were dominant, but with significant areas of dairy farms.

Deer farming was in its infancy here, but goats were all the go, especially milking goats. Forestry was, of course, another important land use which was taking off, especially on the more marginal land area.

Fibre goats became all the rage, from mohair to cashgora, and there was a frenzy of embryo transfer work for vets, to get the goat numbers up. The annual sale at Waitangi Angoras, a Land Corp block, had the horse racing industry vying for top price, with one old Angora buck fetching $60,000 at the sale.

It was not unusual for overseas clients, especially Americans, to ring me saying, ‘could you please check out a doe for my wife, I am thinking of spending $20-30,000 dollars on one!!” Sadly the money spend on a goat seemed to be directly proportional to its ability to die.

After the fibre goats had lost their gloss, the meat goat, the Boer, arrived from South Africa – via Zimbabwe as it was not politically correct to trade with South Africa at the time. The Boer goats soon were up there with the elite, commanding prices similar to the peak of Angoras, with average prices of $20-30,000.

Oddly enough, the prices didn’t stay up for too long, as the goat has a great ability to reproduce, and when aided by the technology of embryo transfer and super ovulation, one doe produced up to 30 viable offspring from one programme.

What about the market for goat meat? Well it never did really change from around $20 - $30 an animal. So once again the goat industry went into recession, as did the rest of the country after the 1987 share market crash.

The next craze was the big birds; yes the Ostrich and Emu had arrived to save the farmers of Northland. I knew little about these strange animals, so off I went to spend a weekend in Auckland, not seeing the sights, but sitting inside an air-conditioned room learning all there was to know about big birds. The next week back in practice I had 3 big bird call outs – two for Ostriches, one for Emus – I thought we were on to it.  Sadly, again the industry struggled up here and my new found knowledge was not challenged again!

Next on the horizon were the Lamas and Alpacas. These are great animals to deal with, and they don‘t reproduce at a great rate of knots, just one a year. Hopefully they will be around for a long time.

In the mean time, Auckland seems to have got a lot closer to the Bay of Islands and the pressure is on rural land for lifestyle blocks from those that have realised you only get one shot at life. Northland has become a Mecca for people wanting to have a change of pace, but with that has come pressure to cut up some of our best farms, from which there can be no going back.

Fonterra too has had an impact up here as well. The early payouts from the new company encouraged expansion in the dairy industry in Northland but over the last couple of years several farms have given  up supply , and some have decided to subdivide. With the better payout this season, and the hint it might last a little while, dairy will be a significant player in Northland for several years to come.

So as you can see, Northland land use has been in constant change for the last 20 plus years, and it is still happening, which makes this place a challenging and fun place to work and live.