Country Life: Cornwall Park, the farm in the heart of a city

Cornwall Park farm is something of a hidden gem in the heart of Auckland city.

Taking up 73 of the 172 hectares of the total park, the farm's Simmental cattle and Perendale sheep are a much-loved feature for the millions of people that visit Cornwall Park every year.

But being a farm in the city comes with specific challenges.

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The first challenge relates to the history of the park and Auckland's unique growing conditions.

"Auckland's the weediest city in the world. Everything grows, so there's every sort of weed you can think of," Peter Maxwell, farm manager, told Country Life.

"We spray out an area and crop it and spray it out again.

"We get one crack every few years of trying to drop down the rats tail and the Kikuyu and anything else, Onehunga weed."

But the historic nature of the park means there are archaeological areas that are not grazed.

"And so that's a bit of an issue with some of the weeds and the worms," Maxwell said.

Maxwell has been managing Cornwall Park farm since 2007 and had a long history of farming before that. He said managing a small city farm is different, but it's interesting and busy in other ways.

"There's no neighbours to send stuff off to graze, so it's all in-house. We buy silage in, but [the stock] have to stay here," he said.

"So we do a bit of a lamb crop every year - 12 hectares of that - and that goes into new grass in the autumn."

The lack of farming neighbours is another challenge particular to Cornwall Park farm, which Peter has gotten around by joining the Kaipara Farms Discussion Group and going to industry events.

And then there is the huge number of non-farming neighbours.

"You can tell people have just bought a new house.

"They chuck rubbish over the fence or they have a loose dog, so that takes a bit of training.

"They all like the farm outlook, but we tell them not to stick their rhododendrons and other crap over the fence."

Cornwall Park is self-funded, leasing out land in the surrounding area, and is overseen by a trust board.

While the farm doesn't have to make a profit to survive, there are other expectations, such as every ewe needing to have a lamb and every cow a calf.

"Other people may laugh about that, but that's why we're working on these ewes to have more twins," he said.

"They don't want it to be a petting zoo. They really do want it to be a little bit, a commercial look, commercial feel."

Maxwell talks in terms of restraining the loss.

"We get as much money for the lambs as we can and as much money for the bulls as we can.

"We spend a little bit more than some other people, perhaps on animal health," he said.

"We've just got to the stage where we're self-sufficient with our cropping.

"We've got old gear, but it's gear that we've been able to put together so we can do all our spraying, cultivating, rolling and seeding. So we have a little pride in that."

Cornwall Park farm's biggest difference from other farms is the huge number of people that come through.

The park is open every day and millions of people visit every year, so there's a lot of focus on keeping everything looking "reasonable" Maxwell said. "Not perfect, reasonable."

"We worry a lot about animal welfare. We explain to people that there will be a few lame sheep with a bit of foot rot on this property.

"You might have seen those sheep running out through the trough. Every time they come past these yards, they go through the trough."

The cattle here are bred with the particular needs of the park in mind too.

"They're all polled, no horns. They're very quiet because where we are, they have to be quiet."

"Simmental's have trouble calving, but we've done a bit of work on that and so this is our first year that we haven't pulled a calf out of a heifer or a cow, and no dead calves, so we're actually a little bit thrilled about that."

The farm has volunteers and cadets coming through too, some of whom have gone on to bigger farming jobs.

"Taking people from the city and going out to other farms, that's probably one of our KPIs."

Maxwell sees his role as a "three-pronged attack"; apart from restraining the loss, the farm's role is also about education and interpretation of the realities of farm life and helping keep the huge swathes of grass in the park under control.

"People come and expect to see sheep and the cattle and the cherry blossoms and the pheasants now.

"You'll see older people that say they were here when they were kids and now they've brought their grandchildren along."

Learn more:

• Find out more about Cornwall Park here

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