ANDREW RITCHIE
The well known McConachie family of Lake Station recently retired from the farm as there was no one in the family who wished to take on the business.
The property lies at 520 metres above sea level, close to Lake Rotoiti and the village of St Arnaud. Malcolm’s grandfather purchased Lake Station in 1936 on the heels of the Great Depression for 12,000 pounds. Much of the land is on the flat valley floor and this was seen as a disadvantage.
Hill country was perceived as being more fertile. Malcolm believes this was because much hill country had been recently cleared of bush and was full of organic matter. The other major problem was that the farm was infested with rabbits.
A loan was finally secured with Levin & Company but grandfather thereafter detested bank managers and Labour governments. During the first five years more income was created through the sale of rabbit skins than from livestock. The rabbits were fed a diet of surplus carrots and jams from local factories before lacing the bait trails with strychnine. This poison was chosen because there was no secondary poisoning of wildlife through any residue left behind.
Horses were used to clean up after the rabbits as they were found to be unaffected by eating the bait. The first twenty years were spent basically treading water until the Korean War came along enabling the free holding of the farm due to the pound per pound income from wool.
Throughout the 1960s Malcolm worked as a musterer, shearer and contract baler before coming home to the property to work full time in 1974. Due to the imposition of death duties Malcolm’s grandfather had left Lake Station to Malcolm and his brothers bypassing his father.
“Although father was a hard worker he never really cared for farming or business so in 1979 he handed me all the accounts and told me to get on with it.” Malcolm and Ingrid married in 1976 so at the age of 26 and 27 they found themselves running Lake Station. Grandfather always insisted on keeping up with technology but at the same time steadfastly refusing to borrow money, maintaining that you could only spend it when you had it available. One exception was when Malcolm came home full of enthusiasm for the latest idea of a round baler that he had seen in operating in a paddock in Canterbury.
He also had strong views on 1080 and the use of DDT, saying the salesman will never tell you any of the negatives of a chemical. During that period many native trees were being cut down and sold but grandfather insisted on leaving the trees alone.
One particularly attractive block is on the 160 hectares where Malcolm and Ingrid are building their new house. Ironically Malcolm says if they were cut down and replanted in pines and carbon credits claimed the block would be carbon neutral. “Because the trees were there in 1992 credits can’t be claimed. Another instance of bureaucratic nonsense.”
Grandfather was ahead of his time with his sheep breeding as well, crossing his Romneys with Poll Dorset’s achieving 110% lambing at a time when most were struggling to hit 100%.
Malcolm once entered his hoggets in a competition but although it was widely agreed they were the best in the group he was slated by the judges who were died in the wool pedigree Romney or Perendale breeders.
The lambing percentage today up to 162%. The well-known Lake Station Hereford stud was established in 1982 when the McConachie’s purchased 10 horned Hereford cows from Blairich Station. Purchases were made from various studs and when the herd was recently dispersed it numbered 160 cows. Malcolm and Ingrid’s daughter Rebecca who was heavily involved in the stud has taken 23 cows to her farm in Gore and many of the rest have been dispersed throughout Hereford studs in the South Island signalling an end of an era.
