Tim Fulton always wanted to tell the stories of rural New Zealanders, so he jumped at the chance to gather profiles of New Zealanders making a life on the land.  Shearing stories feature prominently, including years from Waimate, South Canterbury shearing contractors, the Murphys (Tim’s relations).

In Kiwi Farmers’ Guide to Life Fulton tells the stories of New Zealand famers and their families, tracing the ancestral journeys that brought them to their particular piece of rural Kiwi paradise.

From a dive into farming history to a probe of modern agricultural issues, Kiwi Farmers’ Guide to Life shows farmers at their finest and – in some cases – their most vulnerable. At heart, it explores why farmers do what they do, rather than how.

 New Zealand primary industry deserves to be described to the full. Through the lens of the people living these issues every day, Fulton captures the joy of rural life, but also canvasses racial discrimination, waterway pollution, sheep farming philosophy and parasite control technology.

This book showcases some of the country’s most innovative farmers: their motivations, frustrations and legacies. It is a tribute to a way of life that the author loves himself, having grown up on a farm and come to deeply respect the people and families that make up agriculture in New Zealand.

Tim grew up at ‘Larundel’, a sheep and crop farm at Swannanoa in North Canterbury. Swannanoa school only had a couple of classrooms and the school bus used to cut through the Fultons’ farm to scoop up as many local kids as possible. The lane would sometimes be blocked by a yard-full of sheep so the bus driver (quite possibly the school principal) would swing right by Tim’s home, stopping by the veranda where he and his brothers would hop aboard.

Inspired by family farming stories, as a journalist Tim has written much