Since he was a kid, Geordie Eade has been passionate about working with stock.
He was grateful to his father who was a bricklayer before choosing to switch to farming and it was that adaptability which had been passed on to the next generation.
Geordie grew up on a sheep farm and later, through farm succession, it was found the family needed to branch into dairy farming to move forward.
So he and his wife Frances now farm a 259ha sheep and beef farm in the Pourakino Valley, 20 minutes north of Riverton, running 3500 stock units, and a 123ha dairy farm at the Narrows, in the Waipango area, where 320 cows were contract-milked in a 32-bail rotary shed.
Geordie, who loved farming in Southland, said the foray into dairy was a massive business decision three years ago but they had never looked back.
Having a livestock manager on the sheep farm and the contract milker on the dairy farm allowed Geordie to be on the Beef+Lamb New Zealand southern South Island farmer council and to be involved in catchment group work.
In 2020, Geordie and Frances won the 2020 Southland Ballance Farm Environment Awards — while that involved putting their "neck above the water", they enjoyed the process of presenting what they had done over a 20-year period.
The judges commended the Eades for excellent systems, stockmanship and management, saying their organised operation and supporting mechanisms allow family life to be a priority.
Geordie is a charter member of the Pourakino Catchment Group, formed in the Pourakino Valley in 2013, which was one of the earliest in the country. Those in the valley were quite like-minded anyway and it was a great community.
Through that group they were in regular contact with other farmers in the area and had formed within themselves a very valuable support network.
The group encompassed holding field days on respective farms, consideration of mental health, seeking of advice, knowledge and direction from ecological specialists and environment experts.
That had all been valuable with the management of the Pourakino River when it flooded, riparian planting, sediment trapping, shelterbelt planting and management of the native bush on the property.
The Pourakino catchment group was now a collective member of the Aparima Community Environment group with five other catchment groups in Southland.
Geordie and Frances have three children, Martha, Georgia and Louis, who, like their parents, were sporty, so time was spent following their pursuits.
Good management and systems and delegation and organisation helped to allow those sorts of things, Geordie said.
He has served as an elected parent representative on the board of trustees at Riverton Primary School and attended the likes of school camps and working bees, while Frances was involved with Friends of the School.
He was also in demand to speak with other farmers and groups keen to learn from him and try new things to better their operation.
— Sally Rae
