That’s where Jess and Rene Gorringe operated a mixed cropping farm before immigrating to New Zealand with their three children Paul, Diana and Andrew. Initially, the family bought a dairy farm at Waitoa in the Waikato and then moved to Katikati to milk 120 Ayrshire cows on land just south of what was then a small country town.

Andrew Gorringe, today business manager for the company known as Gorringes, says dairy farming was dominant in the region when the family arrived, with some horticulture, mainly citrus orchards and land in strawberry plant production.

It was Paul Gorringe who started the contracting business in 1965, employing Andrew, then still at school, to drive tractors and harvest silage. While Andrew completed a two-year course in dairying, Paul worked at steadily building up clientele until Andrew joined him in partnership in the company that became known as Gorringe Brothers.

Tragically, Paul died three years ago and Andrew re-evaluated his own and the company’s future. “I didn’t want to see all that the company had built up disappear, and we have a team of dedicated and talented staff whose futures I also wanted to assure.” So the decision was made 18 months ago to sell the business to Gavins Grain Ltd, a Waikato based company Gorringe Brother had a very long and close association with.”

Name change

Andrew was asked to stay on as business manager for the new company and all the staff have been retained. The company name has undergone a slight change from Gorringe Bros to Gorringes.

“There are many synergies between our two companies. Like Gorringes, Gavins is a family business established by Ian Gavin and operated by Ian and son James who are both passionate about the effectiveness of crop production and processing. Gavins also operate a large dairy goat farm and have expertise in producing feed blends for dairy cattle, dairy goats and other livestock.”

Gavins also has an impressive range of agricultural machinery, which is available to Gorringes, greatly expending the range of services offered to Bay of Plenty clients.

“People tend to think we just grow maize but we can also do so much more and we have the expertise to help clients with advice and guidance. We also have a huge resource in   agronomists and other specialists we can call on to help out with tricky jobs if need be.”

Range of services

The wide range of service’s offered by Gorringes includes cropping and general agricultural contracting including drainage, as well as horticultural services such as orchard block preparation, earthmoving and contouring, shelter belt and tree removal, load-out and building platform development, roading and much much more.

Among the range of services Gorringes offers are grass seeding, underscoring, cultivating, orchard preparation, developing playing fields and horse arenas, earthmoving, drainage, logging, pasture spraying and Rotadairon stone burier work. The company plants grass, clover, maize, brassicas, sorghum, chicory, Lucerne and much more.

Pasture renovation is a particular interest for Andrew, who is impressed at the improved production dairy farmers can achieve with new rye grass cultivars available now. “The only issue farmers sometimes have is with persistence, but the increased milk production that can be gained from new rye grasses still makes renewing pasture, together with a planned cropping programme, more than worthwhile.

“We are excited to be setting up rye grass seed trials in the paddock in front of our Katikati depot together with PGG Wrightson Seeds to demonstrate the effectiveness of some of these new cultivars and trial more recent developments.”