1Oth March 2006

Public Trust's Smedley Station celebrates 75 years

Jim Anderton, as Minister Responsible for Public Trust and Minister of Agriculture, is at the Smedley Station reunion (Saturday) in the Hawkes Bay to celebrate the 75th anniversary of the first cadets coming to the station. The reunion will bring over 400 former trainees, community and farm leaders together for a day of activities on the station and concludes with a dinner dance and an after dinner speech from Mr Anderton.

"The origin of the station goes back further even than 75 years. Josiah Howard left his farm to the Crown in 1919 with the instructions it was to be used for agricultural education," Jim Anderton said from Waipawa.

"Today Smedley Station is held by Public Trust and offers hands-on training to ten young Kiwis looking for a rural career every year. More than 500 cadets have come to Smedley and left with a career in the primary industries.
"Smedley Station is also run as a highly successful commercial farm.

The station comprises 4,500 hectares of flat to steep hill country and there are 11,500 ewes, 6000 new hoggets, 500 breeding cows, 300 breeding hinds and 340 velvet stags. Last year, Smedley's farm managers Terry and Judy Walters, won the PPCS Richmond Hawke’s Bay Farmer of the Year competition.
"Smedley Station is one of 30 active farms administered by Public Trust.

The farms range in size from 40 hectares to Smedley’s 4,500 hectares. Public Trust's National Farm Centre is responsible for the administration of the farm.
"For generations, New Zealanders have relied on Public Trust to protect and manage their property and assets during their lifetime.

Its service to New Zealand is as relevant today as it was when Josiah Howard gifted this station to the Crown, and in the century before that," said Jim Anderton, who has been responsible for Public Trust for nearly seven years.

ENDS

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