Guaranteeing animal welfare and protecting the surrounding land while cultivating family values and promoting a collaborative spirit: these are the guiding principles behind Woolmasters William and Emily Jones’s farming activity. We are at Matarae Station, Otago, in New Zealand, where William and Emily live with sons Archie, Digby and Hudson over 6,000 hectares.

“I was born and bred on Matarae Station and have been involved in farming my entire life. After primary school I attended high school in Dunedin for 5 years then moved into my farming career gaining experience on numerous farms. After a back injury and unable to work for a few months, I decided to embark on a university degree to enhance my farming business knowledge, where I gained a Bachelor of Commerce majoring in Agriculture” shares William. His deep passion is rooted in his DNA, so much so he dedicated his studies to furthering his knowledge of all things farm-related. Farm work involves the entire family, and William can count on unwavering support from his wife throughout every step of this fascinating journey: “My wife Emily comes from a similar background where she grew up in the lower depths of the South Island on a sheep and beef property. After her primary school years, she also went to school in Dunedin. Emily went on to complete a Bachelor of Science majoring in Zoology at the University of Otago. From there she embarked on a field science career in agricultural research at Agresearch Invermay in Mosgiel. After meeting, Emily and I combined her research and science background with my farming and businesses knowledge to embark on a merino farming career.”

Animal welfare plays a key role on Matarae Station and William and Emily are strongly committed to finding new ways and tools to honor this promise:

“We have built a brand new woolshed (wool harvesting facility) to cover numerous aspects from health and safety to state-of-the-art design and technology for safe wool harvesting. Most importantly, we now have a facility so clean and tidy we can avoid any contamination entering our wool clip. We have also undertaken a large roading project where we built a stock/vehicle underpass under a major state highway which bisects our property. We have done this to minimise our largest health and safety risk which was people and stock having to cross this highway to access either side of our property.”