I have been farming all my working life in partnership with my brother Graeme in a family company known as V.Q. Sutton & Sons Ltd. While I managed our town supply dairy farm in Redwood Valley, west of Nelson, Graeme managed our sheep and beef farm at Kikiwa, near Nelson Lakes. With the impending deregulation of the town supply industry and the growing realisation that our assets were held in high-value Nelson land, we diversified into horticulture, establishing 5 ha of kiwifruit, but we soon realised our strengths were in grassland farming.
