Newspaper Article 2009 – Connors find stability in land diversity

Connors find stability in land diversity

A tour around Omapere, the lifelong home of farmer Tony Connor, who will celebrate his 70th birthday with family and friend in the Matapiro Hall on Sunday, is almost like a tour around a showgrounds.

As brief as it is, on a typically warm day in the area which can be the hottest and driest in Hawke’s Bay, the tour is a quick lesson in diversification.

Moving away from the mixed farming stability of sheep, cattle and barley, the property, now farmed by sons Mike and Peter, features an Asiatic lilly [lily] plantation, leased by a Dutch company for exporting bulbs to Holland.

Then there is a jetsprint course, which attracted 1400 racers and spectators for a round of the national series last year, and a camping area for about 20 families.

The Connor family association with Omapere dates back to when it was bought in 1908 by Tony Connor’s grandfather, John Joseph Connor, who had emigrated from County Carey in Ireland in 1865.

It had been owned by Walter Shrimpton, who according to local history was forced to sell in a short-lived era of legislation aimed at putting more people on the land and into farming.

Mr Shrimpton had four children, and would have needed one more, in too short a time to oblige, to meet a requirement that farmers could own only specified amounts of land per dependant.

Maurice Connor, Tony’s father, sold the central part of the farm in 1950, in the soldiers’ resettlement era after World War II.

Having spent two years overseas, working in Canada and England, with a bit of shearing in Scotland, Tony Connor returned to become the third generation running the farm.

He now sees in his grandchildren’s living on the property the probability it will go into a fifth generation.

With the eldest just 10, they are gathering pine cones and selling them just as he did, and already taking a hand in rearing and showing calves.

Omapere was once more than flush with rabbits.

About 64,000 skins were sold by contractors in three years working on the property, when burrows were gassed with cyanide, and strychnine and phosphorous pollard was used in the fight to rid the area of the plague.

Tony Connor served 15 years on the Pest Destruction Board dealing with the issues, but the diversification did not “really” come until the late 1990s, with the advent of irrigation with a drawn supply from the river.

The focus in stock has switched from sheep to Friesian and Jersey cattle rearing, finishing and fattening.

Mr Connor also served about 10 years with the Federated Farmers and YFC formed farm information service, which focused on matching jobseekers with jobs.

More recently he has been chairman of the Heretaunga Landskills Trust, which has developed opportunities for people referred from the IHC.

This week, though, the focus was on a 1925 Model T Ford truck, once owned by the Barden soft drink company in Hastings and which he has been restoring.

He bought it from auto electrician Graeme [Graham] Clare after it had been in a shed for 42 years – “but the vintage car enthusiasts came out with a handful of spanners and had it going within an hour”.

“It’s an ongoing retirement hobby,” he said.

“I’ve got to have a few things to do.”

Photo captions –

DIVERSIFYING: A jetsprint course which was crowded with 1400 racers and spectators last March, is just one of the diversifying features of Omapere, which has been in the Connor family for 101 years.

INSET: Tony Connor and sons Mike and Peter at Omapere, where the two brothers  are the fourth generation of the family to run the property.
PICTURES / DOUG LAING
HBT094558-03, HBT094558-01