Twenty-five years ago, the editor of Nelson Marlborough Farming News said: “Make our readers think!” - and that’s what Garrick Batten has been doing ever since he began writing monthly opinion columns for the publication, which in recent years has been renamed Top South Farming Monthly.
I sat down with Garrick at his Brightwater home, looking out over sheep paddocks and vineyards as newly built houses encroached on highly productive land now unable to be used for one of the economic bases for water from the Waimea Community Dam, a subject of one of his recent columns.
I asked him why he’s still writing these columns after a quarter of a century. His response, that he’s spent his career trying to help farmers, probably sums it up best.
“The Labour Government’s 1980s public service restructuring was the signal for me to leave MAF, where my role had been regional manager for advisory and technical services in the top of the South Island,” he said.
“So I had some experiences and could appreciate the widespread and varied rural issues across the region. It also allowed me to expand my own livestock farming from its berryfruit base and connect more directly with farmers in their own environment.”
He joined Federated Farmers, eventually becoming secretary of the Waimea Branch, and in later years served on the Provincial Executive in a role he was already familiar with from his earlier experience as MAF’s regional representative. However, he felt that farmers were not engaging enough with the general public about their situations, so he decided to do something about it.
While best known for his role in the goat industry, that’s earned him the title The Goatfather, Garrick’s background and extensive experience in farming and the primary industries have continued to shape his columns and perspective.
“Topics for columns have kept jumping out, offering farmers the opportunities to take the initiative to tell their stories,” he said.
His columns have continually encouraged farmers to think and have challenged certain topics, prompting action while providing information to support and empower them. They have covered the full breadth of rural life, including women, children, farm profitability, markets, environmental issues, crops, pastures, trees, water, changing land use, climate change, industry politics, and issues arising from attacks on farmers and their industry.
Garrick says he has been encouraged by positive feedback, including having his columns quoted at public meetings and in submissions. Naturally, there have also been responses driven by the personal agendas of some organisations, causing farmers both direct and indirect problems.
“That’s what communication and understanding are all about,” he explains.
“Helping to balance negative and ignorant views and attitudes that the public is mostly hearing about.”
Opportunities to tell other rural stories with a local slant continue to present themselves. His later writing career, which includes seven technical, historical, and fiction books on rural topics distributed through The Copypress (a Nelson bookstore) and regular posts on Substack (an online platform for newsletters and podcasts), now reaches readers both in print and digitally.
As Garrick recalls one farmer remarking to him “How might we clone your wisdom and practical experience for the benefit of future generations?”
To explore Garrick’s other publications, visit www.linkedin.com/in/garrick-batten-farmerfriend or ruralscribe.substack.com or www.ruralscribe.wordpress.com
