Years of farming service behind newest company

Waimarino Bulletin, Volume 6, Issue 263, 15 November 1988, Page 5

Years of farming service behind newest company

Two Waimarino farmers are behind Raetihi's new farming business, Waimarino Livestock Limited.

Brian Chambers and Bernice Frost started the business because they feel the small operator is more able to meet the needs of farmers, and because they are farmers also they feel they have an added interest in getting the best deal for farmers. "Small companies run efficiently and are more in touch with farmer's needs," says Bernice Frost. "We're offering an alternative to the two big companies in the area." They believe the big companies have amalgamated to such a degree that they have a virtual monopoly and can dictate terms, whereas they say a stock firm should be there for the benefit of the farmer. Waimarino Livestock has a network of small and large operators for buying and selling livestock and are working with Grant and Gunn, a new independent wool broking firm in Wanganui. They are also working with Lowe Walker Limited, the successful cattle buying and processing Company that has plants at Hawera,

Te Aroha and Paeroa as well as Te Kanawa Meats Ltd who are pet food manufacturers at Waitomo. They are also agents for Sun Alliance Insurance. Brian Chambers is the stock agent in the partnership and Bernice Frost is the administrator as well as the one who will look after the merchandising side of things through the company's shop in Seddon Street Raetihi. Brian is covering the Waimarino area and

Kaitieki with the stock agency, an area he is well familiar with having been in the area since 1948. He began as a junior for New Zealand Loan and Merchantile i n Raetihi, staying there seven years. He left there as the stock agent/branch manager and went shearing and fencing for about eight years, working in "bloody nearly every shed in the Raetihi area". He then went back to agency work for Freeman R Jackson which became Newton King, which became FCDC Newton King, which

became Crown Farmers, which became Dalgety Crown, which became Elders Pastoral. He was branch manager for Newton King and left Elders Pastoral as senior stock agent to start Waimarino Livestock.

He bought his own farm in 1960 and has farmed it ever since, continuing to do so. Bernice Frost says most farmers in the area have faith in Brian to buy stock for them, even without them having viewed

the stock. Bernice Frost has also been through a number of stock firm mergers, having worked for Newton King and Crown Farmers as well as Elders Pastoral. She was running the office at El-

ders until earlier this year when the company shifted all their administration work to Wanganui, making Bernice and two others redundant. Bernice and her husband farm a property in the area.