This is home

Desma Feakins has made a life living and working on the whenua. As a wahine of Ngāti Mutunga descent, she now stands on Tūhoe land and cares for it like her own. Based in the Ruatoki Valley, 20 minutes’ drive south of Whakatāne, Desma has run a dairy farm owned by the Tataiwhetu Trust alongside her partner, Whareauahi Teepa, for more than a decade. From 2014 to 2019, Desma and Whareauahi’s beautiful whānau of 11 were photographed by Tatsiana Chypsanava as part of a research project, and from this they formed a close friendship. Here, those images and the story of this family and their life on the land are brought together.

Desma steals a moment of quiet stillness. Holding her Milo, she puts her feet on one of the empty dining chairs. Her tāne, Whareauahi – who is of Ngāi Tūhoe and Ngāti Hine and Ngāpuhi descent – has just walked in off the farm and they take a moment to pause and chat. It’s been a week of calving, training farming students and ferrying her tamariki around.

“I was born and bred in New Plymouth and my grandfather was a farmer but my father was a commercial fisherman,” Desma says. “Whare and I met in Hamilton 22 years ago and we came here because the rent was getting so high. It definitely was a bit of a culture shock for me when we first got here. Life is slow in the valley. So I decided to approach the sharemilker who was running the farm at the time and he taught me all he could over a year and I helped him out for free in exchange. Eventually, he offered to employ me as his farmhand. I’ll always be grateful to that old fulla. He took a chance on me and gave me the start to get to where I am today.” The couple live with their five youngest kids in a large whare wistfully dubbed “The Palace”. It’s easy to hear the deep love this wahine has for the life she has carved out here. “Even though this is the land of Whare’s ancestors, I call this my land,” she says. “I see myself as Tūhoe too now and I live in reciprocity

with this whenua. I know it and it knows me, and my kids know it and it knows them too.” Owned by the Tataiwhetu Trust, the 195ha farm has a milking herd of 450 and is managed equally by the couple. Whare takes care of the stock and pasture and Desma looks after the administration, staff and health and safety. Owned by 471 beneficiaries of the Ngāti Rongo hapū, the Tataiwhetu Trust now only employs whānau. “Working for the trust is different to any old employer,” Desma says. “We have a stake in them and they have a stake in us because we are whānau. They’ve always supported us, right from the start. They understood we were always

| Whareauahi and Desma with the family at Tataiwhetu Farm.

going to have a lot of kids and allowed us to make decisions like moving to milking once a day so we could be there for our kids after school.” Part of Desma’s work is supporting the next generation to gain an understanding of what it means to make a life on the land. “Two days a week, I have 12 students from Ruatoki High School come to the farm and learn with Whare and myself. Their tutor comes along and reinforces their theory, while the kids get their practical training being hands-on here with us.” The Tataiwhetu Trust is guided by the principle “Ka ora te whenua, ka ora te tangata. When the land is in good health, so too are the people” and 6 years ago they decided to transition the dairy farm from conventional to organic practices. Desma took the lead on this mahi and they won the prestigious Ahuwhenua Trophy in 2021. “It was a real challenge to move into organics,” Desma says, “but it was necessary. We didn’t want to be using sprays. We didn’t want to be forcing antibiotics down the cows’ throats. We want to be living in better relationship with this land. I was up for the challenge, but I didn’t really know what I was getting myself into until it was too late!” Desma and Whareauahi are the definition of teamwork. They live and work alongside one another, sharing the duties of whānau, whare and farm. When asked for the secret to their relationship, which spans more than two decades, Whareauahi chimes in from the background: “I’m really handsome!” Desma laughs, but for this mother and dairy farmer it also goes much deeper than that. “Whare and I met in Hamilton,” she says, “and I already had two boys. I had come from a rocky relationship, so being with Whare, who is such a quiet, gentle man… I thought he’d make a good father. Whare always said he wanted lots of kids and I had no problem with that, as long as I could do what I wanted to do. He sorts all our dinners and has always stayed at home with the little ones while I went back to work as soon as I could.” Every year, the couple dry off the cows and take time out to disappear together and reset. Typically, they head overseas – China, India, Vietnam. They don’t mind where, as long as they get to leave everything behind for a few weeks and just be with one another. “It’s such a good challenge, living and working together,” Desma says, “but we’ve done it for so long it doesn’t often feel that challenging. After this long, we both know each other pretty well!” Whānau come and go from the family’s homestead. It’s always warm and there’s always kai to be had. The two older boys, Rikki, 29, and Kody, 27, bring their five young kids around, and the two older teens, Wiremu, 17, and Mihiata, 15, are in and out from boarding school. There are often whāngai tamariki around and Nanny and Koro – Whareauahi’s parents – live just down the driveway. “I’m very lucky to have such wonderful in-laws,” Desma says. “Nan’s always baking, they feed us and look after the kids. Dad used to work for us up until he had a stroke and a heart attack, but he still hoses down the yard to keep his hand in. It’s good for him to feel that sense of mahi, purpose.” For the six younger tamariki, the farm is their birthplace and it’s all they have ever known. The kids are fluent in te reo and right into their kapa haka, which has been important to Desma because she never had the opportunity to

| The farm's milking shed at dawn.

GLOSSARY

Kai, food. Kapa haka, performance group. Koro, grandfather. Mahi, work. Māoritanga, Māori culture. Tamariki, children. Tāne, male partner. Te reo, the Māori language. Wahine, woman. Whānau, family. Whāngai, a child who is not a biological offspring but who is cared for as though they were. Whare, house. Whenua, land.

connect to her Māoritanga in that way. The youngest, Mia, 5, recently started school at Te Wharekura o Ruatoki alongside siblings Puretu, 6, Rangiaho, 9, Tapu, 10, and Wenarata, 13, and the kids have also grown up learning the inner workings and rhythms of the farm. “I’ve always worked on the farm right up until the day I dropped,” explains Desma. “I’d give birth, hand the baby over to Whare and be back to it, sometimes the next day, and he’d just have to call me when bub needed a titty. The kids all get up early every morning with me to bring the cows up to the shed and they’ve all helped with milking as they’ve gotten older. They didn’t have a choice, really! They’re independent, helpful and they support each other. I’m really proud of the way we’ve allowed our kids to grow up.”

| Mihiata carrying her younger sister, Mia.

This story appeared in the Spring 2021 edition of Shepherdess. Summer edition out now at your local Farmlands store.

Writer: Arielle Kauaeroa (Muaūpoko, Ngāti Raukawa ki te Tonga) Photographer: Tatsiana Chypsanava

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