From Dairy to Gold: Change Drives Success for the Dyer Family

Across three generations, change is something the Dyer family all agree is a constant feature of farming.

“The only guarantee in life is change,” says retired Tauranga orchardist Graham Dyer, who, with his wife Mavis, was named the Regional Supreme Winner in the 2011 Bay of Plenty Ballance Farm Environment Awards (BFEA).

The sentiment is echoed by two of their three sons, Steve and Gavin, whose Gold Nugget Orchard was threatened by the kiwifruit vine disease PSA. Thanks to manager David Timms taking a diverse approach that enabled the orchards to be rebuilt with PSA-resistant varieties, the Gold Nugget Orchard team won the AgriBusiness and AgriScience awards at the 2018 Bay of Plenty Ballance Farm Environment Awards.

And claiming an award trifecta across the generations was Steve’s son Blair, who – with Steve Atkinson of kiwifruit orchard, Kiwi Heights – was named this year’s Bay of Plenty BFEA Regional Supreme Winner. Like his grandfather, Blair couldn’t agree more about change being the only constant.

“I’ve been in this [kiwifruit] industry 11 years, and we haven’t had one season the same,” he says. “The kiwifruit industry is heavily dependent on the growing environment and weather. If you are not constantly adapting to change, you’re going backwards.”

The family’s success in kiwifruit had an unplanned, but fortuitous, start.

Graham’s father George was dairy farming in Pukekohe and wanted to expand the farm but “couldn’t do anything for mud,” says Mavis. In 1960, he bought a farm in Tauranga and moved the family south.

What he didn’t know then, while milking a herd of 200 cows on the 120ha property on Ruahihi Road, was that the free-draining soil of the region made it perfect to grow kiwifruit. A fruit that would, in time, shape the family’s fortunes.

Graham and Mavis eventually took over the farm, but two decades later they started looking around for a new challenge. “Dairy farms are for young people,” says Graham.

They weren’t quite ready to give up dairy farming, feeling a huge loyalty to their quality stud stock, so started selling kiwifruit plants and shelter belt trees from a small nursery alongside the dairy.

During the nursery work, they recognised the characteristics of the land were better than Te Puke, which at that time in the early 1980s was becoming known as the kiwifruit capital of the world. They decided to embrace their true ethos as plant people. The couple sold the dairy stud to son Steve and planted a kiwifruit orchard.

“I’ve always been a plant person, so actually it was an easy transition; a lot of work planting them out, but an easy sector to move into,” says Graham.

As well as the kiwifruit, Graham and Mavis planted avocado trees. A decade later, when the trees didn’t grow because of wet growing conditions, they were removed and mulched, to be replaced by 2,000 Ginkgo Biloba trees across 2ha. It was the largest gingko nut orchard in the southern hemisphere and marked the start of a 20-year project travelling to China, working with scientists, experimenting with skin care ranges and processing gingko nuts, of which they still have a freezer full.

However, once they reluctantly accepted that gingko nuts weren’t being accepted by the market, Graham and Mavis sent the gingko trees to join the avos as mulch.

“If you are afraid of failure, you will never find success,” says Graham, happy to take the risks but ever the pragmatist.

“Graham has always been the innovator in the family. He wasn’t ever driven by money or success, but by the need to innovate,” says Graham’s grandson, Blair. “At this stage of my career and in a very competitive industry where the financial success of the business remains at the forefront, my risks need to be a bit more calculated.”

While Blair grew up on a dairy farm in the Waikato, his family connections to the kiwifruit industry remained strong and made it almost inevitable that after completing his business and management degrees at Massey University, he would become involved in the business.

Blair runs a management consultancy as well as farming a small kiwifruit orchard with his wife. There have been some big changes in the industry compared to when his grandparents farmed. These changes have resulted in huge increases in how much orchardists can grow per hectare. In 1981, New Zealand exported approximately 22,000 tonnes of kiwifruit, while in 2022 production reached around 603,500 tonnes.

“The chemicals we are using are more advanced and safer. We are constantly measuring and collecting data points on how much food and water the plants need. The packing is very digitised and largely robotic now,” says Blair.

He adds that taking risks like his grandfather did isn’t quite as vital to success now as being able to pivot quickly. Through cross-breeding, scientists are constantly working on new varieties which are distributed to orchards via Zespri, the world’s largest grower-owned marketer of kiwifruit.

“You have to be nimble as new varieties come onto the market,” says Blair. “Gold kiwifruit in particular has returns that are unrivalled on a per hectare level.”  So, while he’s focused on keeping current, he admits to some wistful moments. “I do look forward to a time where I have the freedom to trial new things, much like Graham.”

Blair acknowledges that with Graham and Mavis as pioneers of the Tauranga orchards, and his uncle Gavin an innovator in the Gold Kiwifruit space, he wears the Dyer name as a badge of honour. “It has a lot of history in the industry, that’s for sure.”

Although it was never a given that Graham and Mavis’s three sons, Steve, Colin and Gavin, would become involved in kiwifruit production.

“Growing up we were careful to acknowledge their individual interests,” says Graham, “but what’s happened is the opposite; they’ve come together.”

While Steve is still dairy farming in the Waikato, he says the innovative skills and attitude his father and brothers brought to the industry led him and his wife, Lynette, to become early investors with Gavin and his wife Linda, in the Gold Nugget orchards. “We are so grateful to watch Blair being mentored as the next generation and see this knowledge being shared,” says Steve. “We are really proud of his achievements.”

A sentiment Mavis shares. “It’s not how great our orchard was or how magnificently we farmed,” says Mavis. “Our children are all very successful in their own way, and that to me is success.”

Blair echoes a similar sentiment. “I do say our children will need to succeed and fail at whatever they are passionate about.

“You can’t be sheltered by the success of your family because that won’t help you against the harsh realities of life.”

And with kiwifruit still New Zealand’s single most valuable fruit export and expected to exceed $5 billion export revenue for the first time in 2025, does Graham hope that Blair’s children, his great-grandchildren, will one day embrace a kiwifruit future?

“I would hope so, but my wish would be that they do what they want to do,” he says.