Mingiroa Farm - Mingiroa Farm 29 Mingaroa Road

Our story

Mingiroa Farm is a multi-generational regenerative family farm. Since 1852, the Hogg family have tended to the land, and grown food for their community.

In the 80’s, Mingiroa Farm was one of the first in New Zealand to grow asparagus and in the 90’s, we were organically certified for sheep, beef and horticulture. Through farmers markets, vegetable boxes and a faithful roadside farm shop, Richard and Sally Hogg shared the best of Mingiroa with the community. Their children Tessa, Hamish and Sam were planters, pickers and delivery assistants on Richard’s runs to Wellington in the iconic “vege van”. We were a bit before our time, when the true effect of sprays and chemicals were not widely known by consumers. The timing wasn’t quite right and operating a vege box subscription service was difficult to manage the peaks and troughs, including kiwi summer holidays (the best growing season). We always kept a hand in vegetable growing, continuing to grow asparagus and seedlings, for over 40 years

In 2008, the family farm was converted to dairy, with the intention to run the farm conventionally to cover initial conversion costs before running the dairy platform organically.  It took us longer than we had hoped, and, when dairy prices dropped substantially, we were facing increasing costs, a farm that was reliant on inputs and feed and being run in a way that didn’t align with our values - it was time to get real with what we all wanted for the farm.

In 2015, Richard and Sally gathered the family for the first of many summits. We shared our vision for a return to organic and regenerative farming, going back to our roots and farming in a way that we can be proud of.  We were bolstered by a conviction that farming regeneratively is a way of risk-proofing the farm from an unsustainable (for the land, for us and for the financial bottom line) conventional model.  

Since then, we’ve been organically certified by Biogro NZ, and diversified our pastures to a variety of grasses, legumes herbs and other plants that support the health of our animals. Sam has led the organic and regenerative conversion, increasing the scale and variety of our vegetable growing, by using a closed loop system where the animals and vegetables support each other. The farm has seen increased soil health, animal health, pasture health and biodiversity. In recent years, Mingiroa Farm has been drawing national attention, we are one of the Calm the Farm pathfinder farms, have been featured in New Zealand Geographic, and on national television. This is a huge credit to how Sam has been running the farm, the sense of kaitiakitanga (stewardship) and openness that Richard and Sally have always led with and is a very exciting time for us. 

We are playing the long game, and aim to not just preserve but regenerate our patch of land for future generations. It has not all been easy, and through open days, farmer groups and networks, we are sharing what we learn with other farmers. We recognise that farmers operate in a system that includes farm advisory support, big ag commercial interests, debt, finance and policy. There is a lot that needs to change in this system to better support farmers to make the change to regenerative farming. The financial system needs to start valuing the environmental investment that regenerative farmers are making and governments need to start creating supportive policy, investments and incentives, not just setting limits.

Although we’re farmers, we've always been keen to do things a bit differently, we were organic way back when everyone thought it was a strange hippy trend. We don't like sprays or synthetic fertilisers and we’re not too fancy. We think that good milk should be accessible and affordable.  We want to farm in a way that we can be proud of. At the end of the day, we’re creating food. You should know what's in it and where it's come from. There’s no preciousness here on the farm. Just a lot of lovely cows and good people.