Farming couple struggle to get their heads around new rules

Implementing farm environment plans has been at times confusing for Lees Valley farmers Craig and Marilyn Dalzell, so they've called on their son to help out.

The couple has been at Cromdale Station for 32 years and farm sheep, beef and deer. Prior to that Craig was a shearer and Marilyn was a shed hand and wool classer.

"We came in with another partner to help finance us for a wee while and it was pretty rundown so that gave us the opportunity to buy it," Craig says.

During the early years on the out-of-the way farm their three children, Stewart, Alex and Alicia were in correspondence school.

Once a year the family walked Cromdale sheep to the Oxford Ewe Fair with other farming families in valley.

"For us it was four days to get the sheep to market and then the fifth day was market day which was always huge but it was awesome and we have a lot of stories from those days," Marilyn says.

More recently, adhering to environmental regulations and getting consents to farm has been a daunting task for the busy farmers, but thanks to Alex, who studied agriculture and resource management at Lincoln, they've been able to keep their heads above the bureaucratic waterline.

"You've got to work out what you can do and what you can't do and how to stay profitable, as a fifth of our farm has already been recognised as being (environmentally) significant."

The financial burden to fence off wetlands and retiring land has been heavy. Marilyn agrees with many of the new rules but wishes that what they have already done would be recognised.

"There's been no 'give' to farmers that were looking after wetlands and those things prior to the legislation."

After decades of working to turn the 2000 hectare property into a productive farm they can be proud of, the Dalzell's would like to take a step back and let their sons Stewart and Alex take over the reins. Stewart is already working on-farm.

However developing a workable strategy for succession is not easy.

"We're struggling with the money we need to buy something out the front (off farm). How can we generate that and give the boys an opportunity to take over and not have too much debt over their heads that they can't keep it afloat."

Marilyn admits they haven't quite come up with the answer but they're continuing to work on a plan.

"We've spent thirty years putting all of our money back into making our farm as best as we can and so, in a way, we didn't look to the future about trying to save some money for our retirement," she says.